E Salam Apocalypse: A Novel
by MindsTheatre
Summary: Includes influences from multiple XMen and Marvel storylines. The story was created in a groupwriting LJ experiment, and as a result features a host of new mutants, as well as a host of old ones. Every mutant you can think of is in this.
1. Prologue Part I

Alchem reclined lazily, latex balloon in hand, squeezing it tightly. Slowly, creeping, as though unsure of itself, the balloon began to expand and push against his hands. It wanted to rise, fly out of the sewer grates above him and dance in the sunlight. It wanted to escape the stench of rats feeding on the spew of a thousand New Yorkers, their shit and their syringes, and even a few of their dead bodies. In an instant, the balloon sucked back into itself and let out a cold whine. Alchem flicked it aside – next to him lie a hundred more of its kind, in all different colors. He picked up another, pulled it out, snapped it back, and began the process anew. This is what he did to think, slowly convert the air inside the balloon into helium while pushing against it, seeing how long his control could conquer his own mutant powers.

"Eventually, the Sentinels will discover your rainbow trail here and wonder what in the New York diet makes a steady stream of color come out of the sewage." The voice came from behind him. Alchem didn't need to turn around to know who it was – there were only three mutants down here, and one of them was occupied within view at a makeshift computer.

"Remind me why we're down here again, Hank?"

"Because we're locked out?"

"Right." He forced the helium into hydrogen, and flicked another balloon to the ground. This is what he did to think – and he most certainly needed to think. Arguably the three greatest mutant minds in one…well, it certainly wasn't a room – cave?...and they could not come up with a single conceivable way to pick a lock.

Hank gave a bitter chuckle behind him. "You know, we're arguably the three greatest mutant thinkers remaining, and we can't even come up with a…"

"Single conceivable way to pick a lock?" Alchem finished his sentence.

"Y…yes." He let out a long breath. "I guess I should've expected you two to be thinking the same thing."

Naze raised his head from the computer, apparently having listened to the entire conversation. "It isn't as simple as that, you know."

"We know," Alchem replied. A blue balloon wheezed itself into a wall, then popped.

"Quiet!" Hank grabbed the bag from the ground and threw it into the noxious stream of sewage. Alchem sat upright with a start. "Gordon," – right, they weren't going by mutant names any more, it was Gordon, not Alchem – "you don't have as much experience with these things as For…_Naze_ and I do. I suggest for everyone's wellbeing you heed our advice on this – they are the most destructive foe you have ever heard of. There is no such thing as too much precaution." Alchem returned to his recline, dejected.

"Got it," he murmured under his breath.

"Yes, I have!" Naze turned from the computer to face his two companions. "Gentlemen, we have a key."

It had cost Ruckus almost half of Sinister's coffers to become London's new celebrity of the financial world. He had bought hotels he didn't know the names of, attended philanthropic functions for causes he didn't believe in, and had Sinister's jet repainted in a more appealing yet noticeable shade of sage green. It was better than the jungle-camouflage look, at least when Ruckus was trying to attract attention.

He built up the image of the mystery day-trader by throwing so much money at the stock market that he was bound to make some money. Ruckus didn't have the talent for plotting and planning that Sinister did – that's why Sinister was Sinister and Ruckus was just one of the Nasty Boys. But Sinister was in New York under Sentinel supervision – Slab, Gorgeous, and Hairbag had been placed throughout the states in different concentration camps. There were no Nasty Boys now, only Ruckus. And if he was going to take out not one but four different sentinel camps, he was going to have to start being a little more sinister himself.

It was that thought that led him to one of the most baleful organizations in London – the Hellfire Club. They had relocated to the original headquarters since the Sentinel takeover of the United States. Back in their manorhouse on Victoria street and reorganized under Shinobi Shaw – the founder's son and murderer – Hellfire was even more wary of news leaking out that London's financial power-players were mutants themselves. The carrot had been Ruckus' rise to icon status; the stick had been good clean blackmail. Ruckus didn't really care which one had worked. He was in.

Now, sitting at a superfluously long table as the "honored guest" at his induction ceremony, dressed in an 18th century suit with a powdered wig and a puff of lace spilling out of his throat, hearing those who had never met him ramble on about his accomplishments, he had to smile. Not actually smile, of course – to these silverspoonfed children, this was the most serious thing happening in the world at that moment. It was certainly not an event to smile at. But inside, he was chuckling. At the getup, at the characters surrounding him, at the fact that he honestly believed the hard part was over. All he was waiting for were those simple words.

"Finally," Shinobi Shaw intoned, raising his glass and bringing Ruckus back to the scene, "let us welcome our new member. Ruckus!" The forty-some odd members around the table clapped their hands, some chiming their glasses with silverware. Ruckus pushed his chair back, adjusted his wig, stood up, cleared his throat, and prepared to give the crownless White King Shinobi Shaw the biggest surprise of his reign.

"It's…it's an honor…truly…to be inducted as a Lord Cardinal amongst all you privileged pah-pah-people…what I'm trying to say is…" Exhale. Think. You're in. No need to be nervous. "Shinobi, I thank you for granting me such a position of power. I know that in whatever I do, the Hellfire Club will be behind me. Which is why I already have my first request." The room shifted – this was not procedure. He was supposed to accept demurely and sit back down. "I understand that you have access to the design plans for the sentinels." The shifting became murmurs, stares, and gasps. The White Queen Emma Frost held her hand to her forehead – was she trying to get into his mind? She suddenly look up, into his own eyes. She knew. It didn't matter. "Shinobi, I need to see these plans."

The White King never lost his smirk. He could've been cute if he wasn't such a pric. "First, _Lord Hennessey_, I am to be addressed as the _White King_. My father before his untimely demise funded the project. His files on the matter are in my office, but frankly whatever you are attempting to do…"

"Give him the documents, Shinobi." White Queen was looking down at her hands in her lap, but her voice came as though she were proclaiming it from the top of Buckingham Palace. Maybe being in the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club took more than just wealth.

"Emma," Shinobi turned to his Queen, "you know that the sentinels cannot be persuaded by the means we prefer here."

Ruckus made a show of yawning. It was _his_ induction ceremony, after all. "Then perhaps I will persuade them by other means."

Zoe answered the phone. "Morning, Sunshine," she said.

Charles' sleep face shone up at her from her cell phone. "I hate you, did I ever tell you that?" He was never at his best before dawn.

"Frequently," Zoe grinned boyishly. There was something to be said for videophone. It conveyed world's more detail.

"You're cheerful tonight. Any reason?"

"I got the call." Her voice trembled slightly. She had been waiting for this. This was why she was here, in the middle of nowhere.

"Tell me." The sleep, and the friendship, was instantly gone from Charles' face and voice.

"I got a visit from Creed himself today. How was I enjoying my new security clearance? Did I have the latest test results? Did I have any ideas about the last model's failures?..."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I was sure it had to be my fault."

Charles' grin returned. "Good."

"Then he asked if I could come to his office tomorrow. Important guest he wanted me to meet."

Zoe lost sight of Charles for a moment on her screen. There was a whoop, and he reappeared, looking somewhat flushed and disheveled.

"I apologize. Carry on."

"That was it. Tomorrow – or I guess it's today now – at eight am sharp. She let out a laugh, throwing her head back. "He wanted to know if that would be too early."

Charles didn't think it as funny as she did. "Anything else?"

"Um, don't think so. Same old same old for the rest of the day. Oh, yeah, one thing – Creed's wife wanted me to say hi to you."

There was a long pause. Charles looked down, opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Charles?"

"His wife?" Charles' voice was careful, tight.

"Yeah, weird huh? She's pretty, though."

"Zoe, Graydon Creed's wife has been dead for twenty years. Breast cancer."

"Oh. Guess I must have imagined it, then."

"I'm hoping so, too."

Charles left it at that. But when she hung up, Zoe's elation was gone. There was too much that she had been seeing, believing, knowing, that wasn't really there. When you're crazy back in Israel, they put you in a ward, they study you, they pray for you. When you're an international secret agent working to infiltrate the Friends of Humanity headquarters and stop a budding sentinel program, that's not really an option. Hallucination is a little more dangerous. And if she didn't keep it under control, Charles was going to pull her from the island.

It was three in the morning, but Charles hadn't woken her. Ever since her mutant powers had developed, she didn't really sleep. Everlasting endurance did that to you. But now, running on about ten hours of sleep for the past six years, her mind was no longer keeping up with her body. Physically, she was the best that the Ops had to offer – on nights like tonight when she couldn't sleep, she would do pushups or jumping jacks for hours on top of hours. But mentally, she was becoming a klutz, a schlemiel – in her line of work, slipping up didn't mean a stern talking to by the rabbi anymore.

Tonight, jumping jacks were simply boring. Tonight, she decided to read a good book. _The_ Good Book. Cover to cover – and in English. On those nights when exercise wasn't appealing, she had been working on her English. She could communicate it well, but reading was a problem for her. And what better place to start her work than the Torah.

She was done by seven, enough time to shower and dress for the day. Today was the day that she finally saw Albert, the new sentinel program that she had been sent to destroy. She really didn't know what to expect – she pictured the sentinels, then enlarged them and glossed them with adamantium, but after hearing reports of "Nimrod" the deadliest sentinel that was the size of a human, she doubted her own preconceived notions of this beast. The adamantium part was the only part she knew. In developing her cover, Ops had to make her _needed_ for the Albert project, and all that they knew was that Graydon Creed was receiving vast quantities of adamantium from some unknown source. So they made her a specialist on the stuff. And in her free time at night, she read books, articles, journals, everything that she could get her hands on. She _was_ an expert on the stuff. And when she had arrived on Genosha, this tiny ant-infested Southeast Asian jungle, they put her to work on integrating electronics and adamantium metal. So the new sentinels were probably made out of adamantium. Just a hunch.

Zoe climbed into the jeep parked outside, hers courtesy of the Friends of Humanity. And by Friends of Humanity they really meant Killers of Mutants, Humanity's Last Hope. From everything that she had read about the sentinel program, these machines weren't stopping at exterminating mutants. The logic went something like this: sentinels are programmed to stop mutants; humans mutate into mutants; therefore, the only way to truly stop mutants is to kill humans. It made sense to Zoe. It probably shouldn't have.

She reached the bunker at quarter-to-eight. Time to kill, as always. It was another habit of always having the energy to be early. She parked the car, flashed her ID to the armed guards at the front of the compound, and entered. The facility was a bizarre combination of military bunker, research lab, and indigenous ziggurat. It rose up out of the jungle in successively smaller plateaus, made out of some gray slate with markings Zoe couldn't identify – nor had she made the effort to. At the top was the main entry way, the one she passed through every morning. She could appreciate the strategy in that – those guards had seen her car since before she even got in it less than an hour ago. The only hiding from the eyes of the Friend's of Humanity was in the jungle deep beneath her. And even then, she was sure they had thought of that eventuality.

She made her way familiarly through the twist and turns of the headquarters, winding down to Creed's office. He was, of course, not there yet. She asked for him, and the secretary, who had ants crawling up her leg, told her to wait in the lobby. Zoe considered pointing out the ants, then reasoned that if the woman was truly bug-infested she would know it.

_See_? She thought. _I don't know what you're bitching about, Charles. I'm doing just fine here_. The ants began streaming across the carpet toward her. Just as she went to foolishly react yet again, Graydon Creed entered. Tall, handsome in a slimy way, and dressed in a black power suit. He reminded her, oddly enough, of Rebbe Yosef ben Akiba, the Yeshiva instructor who had slapped her when he caught her practicing English on a Gentile boy two days past her Bat Mitzvah. Come to think of it, Creed looked _exactly_ like Rebbe Yosef. You could even see the beginnings of earlock spiraling down from his temples.

"Zoe, good morning." He extended his hand, but Zoe was still focused on the ants to notice.

"Good morning, sir."

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting long."

"Not at all, sir." _Only two years, bastard_. The intensive preparation that had gone into this operation was, in the grand scheme of things, not at all bad considering the secrecy of the plans about to be revealed to her.

"Why don't you come inside?" They stepped into his office, another plain room with one very noticeable feature; a large, metal, triple-bolted door. Albert was probably in there. Just a hunch.

She sat down in a big red leather chair positioned for guests, and Creed took his place behind the desk. Before sitting down, he offered her coffee, which she gratefully accepted. The caffeine, oddly enough, soother her nerves. The earlocks now reached past his chin.

"I asked you here this morning, Zoe, to introduce you to a special guest."

"I know." Crap.

"You know?" Yosef was not a stupid man.

"You told me. Yesterday afternoon. You said that you wanted me to meet someone." _Close call, Zoe_.

"Ah. Yes, I did, didn't I? How…incautious of me. Now, don't be alarmed at his appearance. He has undergone certain…operations, which, while they look a little scary, are invaluable to our purposes." As he spoke, he reached under the desk and moved his fingers a bit. The triple-lock door began to open. He motioned for her to stand, and then entered the corridor. There was a long hallway through what felt like a metal tube, and at the end, more doors. _How long is this going to take?_

"The program has been in the design stages since the mid-1990's, when we confronted with a very grave and serious threat…" Zoe just nodded, though it was becoming more difficult to understand Rebbe Yosef through his pronounced lisp. Rebbe Yosef's wife used to teas him about his lisp. When she showed up at Zoe's father's doorstep with a black eye, Zoe knew she had teased Rebbe Yosef once too often. She looked up. While she had been zoning out and nodding, he had continued talking, giving her the technical specs of the new sentinel that she had been sent to destroy.

"Before I introduce you to him," he concluded, "is there anything you'd like to ask about the Allan project? After all, it is your technical expertise which we are hoping to rely on."

"Albert."

Rebbe Yosef was suddenly _very much_ Graydon Creed. The resemblance vanished. Creed nodded once. "Oh. Yes of course. How silly of me. It is Albert, isn't it?"

Graydon Creed may have reminded Zoe of a stupid man without the call of Gd in his heart, but he is by no means a stupid man.

Strike 2.

Zoe ran as fast as she could back down the metal hallway with Creed on her tail, chasing after her. She slammed through the open door into his office and turned to see her pursuer, diving after her, attempting to get her tackled. She jumped backwards and burst out the office door past the startled secretary – now sporting a fetching array of cockroaches across her bustline – just as Creed pulled a gun from behind his desk and started firing. She made for a bee-line for the exit, left her car, and ran down the pathway outside into the jungle. She was safe there. They could chase her with whatever they wanted to. Men tired, dogs tired, machines ran out of gas. Zoe could run until she hit water, could swim until she could hit shore. They'd never catch her. She threw back her head and let out a laugh as she heard the gunshots fading behind her.

When Katherine had brought Rachel to the now-deserted Weapon X facility in Canada, neither really knew what to expect from the place. From what Rachel knew, Katherine's close friendship with Wolverine had opened to her certain tidbits of information – whatever Wolverine was willing to give. Whatever Wolverine remembered. But Rachel Summers, despite being _related_ to two of the founding X-Men, was never invited in that close to share in their personal secrets and dark pasts. In fact, until the Phoenix force had passed into her after her mother passed away, the X-Men had never taken an interest in her. Now she was best friends with one of them, giggling like schoolgirls and trying to reenact a childish youth they never had. Every once in a while, though, their age showed.

"What exactly happened here, Kitty?" They talked without looking at each other, their gaze captured by the simple laboratory falling apart in front of them.

"Seems like all the people who know everything that happened here are dead. All I know is that it's where Wolverine got his temper, so to speak. And met Sabertooth. Everything from World War II to the Sentinel program has been rumored to have connections to this place. It's like the crossroads of history."

"You're getting a little too deep for me, Sprite."

"Sorry Ray." She turned to face her friend. "I had a lot of friends threat were caused a lot of pain by this place."

"But it's dead now, there's nothing going on here. If you're looking for ghosts to exact revenge from, this isn't the place to do it."

Katherine let out a bitter chuckle – so short that Rachel thought it was just a stuttered exhale. "Not quite. Before this place was shut down, but after Weapon X was finished with it, our good friend Bolivar Trask set up shop here." Rachel rolled her eyes with an aggravated sigh. "He figured the mutant DNA lying all over the place would be a fun way to test out his latest Sentinel designs. It was here that he developed the Sentinel we now know as the Hunter."

"Nimrod!"

"The one and only. Before we can shut down the concentration camps, we have to stymie the flow of mutants collar-bound. And that means taking down the main Sentinel capturing them. If there exists any way to kill Nimrod, it's in there."

"But Kitty, I took care of Nimrod, remember? I sent him back to a time where he couldn't do any damage, to where there _were no mutants_. We're done with him!"

"I wish it were that simple, Ray. Nothing can kill Nimrod, and as far as we know, he can time travel just like you. Hell, he was responsible for 90 of the mutant captures, and have you even seen a difference? We have to find the secret to destroying him once and for all."

"Why us?"

Katherine reached out her arms and spun around in the snow. "Do you see anyone else here?" she stared her friend in the eye, seeing the shared understanding no doubt reflected in her own. "You stand guard, Ray, and let me know the minute you sense any danger. I can make it through the facility phasing a lot quicker than you. We'll be out of here in no time with just another tiny piece of this complicated mess." She walked up to the door, paused, and turned around to give Rachel a reassuring nod, before stepping forward. Straight into the door.

"Ow!" She rubbed her face, which had taken the brunt of the blow. "What gives?"

"Are you ok!" Rachel came running up to the door and put her arm around Katherine.

"I'm fine…but I thought I was phasing! What gives?" She turned intangible, and Rachel's arm right through her, throwing Rachel off balance. "Sorry."

"Ok that's just creepy. Let me know when you're going to do that, ok?"

Katherine didn't respond. She had reached out her hand towards the door, slowly approaching it, getting ready to feel the inside and the otherside. Her hand hit the door, and she became instantly solid again. "I don't understand what's going on."

Rachel eyed the walls around the door for clues. So much was worn away by the winds, the snow, and time. Dirt was caked around the crevices, cobwebs hung down in the corners, claw marks marred the metal surface…claw marks?

"Do those belong to Wolverine?" Rachel pointed at three lines scratching at the wall about chest high only a foot from the door.

Katherine walked up to the scratch and put her hand on it. "Logan…"

"Doesn't adamantium cut through _anything_? Even this stuff?"

"Unless it wasn't adamantium. Wolverine's claws were just bone before he disappeared, you know."

"And he couldn't get through this wall?"

"It doesn't even look like he tried…"

Rachel stepped back from the door, thinking. It didn't make sense. _If he wanted to get in, he could've gotten in…_she suddenly had an idea. She lit her right index finger on fire with the phoenix power raging through her. Steadily, carefully, she reached it out to touch the wall. Smoke rose from her finger as the light was extinguished.

"No powers. The wall is some kind of force field. It's turning off mutant powers. That's why you can't phase in."

"That's why Wolverine couldn't get in either. He couldn't keep his claws out."

"What? I thought the claws weren't mutant."

Katherine shook her head. "They were, just not their adamantium coating. Once he reverted to bone, they could've been contained by the camp collars just as easily as our powers."

Rachel pretended to understand. Were they mutant or weren't they? She pulled out her lockpicks – the same set Ororo had given her when she had finished her training. A tear escaped from her eyes. Last she had heard, Storm was in another camp, in Toronto. When the Sentinels had found out about her claustrophobia, they put her in a box. She would be the first they rescued. Just as soon as they were done here…

Success. The door slid open into the wall. "It looks like, with these, _I_ can make it through faster than _you_. I guess I'm on point."

"Be careful, Ray."

"I was just about to say the same to you."

Rachel took a few steps forward into the facility. It was a good thing Storm wasn't here – the walls were close together, and everything was a dark slate, making the place feel even smaller. And up and down the hallways were seemingly endless rows of doors. "Where do I start?" she asked into her headset.

"Pick a door."

Eight doors later, Rachel hadn't found a damn thing. Ruined computers, people-sized Petri dishes, but no information on _any_ Sentinels, let alone the Nimrod project.

"What now?"

"When I said pick a door, I was kind of hoping you would pick a door that looked important. Generally, the bigger the lock, the bigger the prize."

"Thanks, Kitty. You could've told me that eight rooms ago."

"Why, do you see an important door?"

"Of course." A large door with four different key holes and metal bars running across, fastening it to the surrounding walls. That was probably important. Rachel hunched over the locks. After a little work, one popped open, and then promptly reset. She tried again with a different one, met with the same frustration.

"I don't think I can get this one."

"What's going on?"

"It's four different locks, but as soon as I do one, it resets before I can move on to the others."

"Try all four at the same time."

Rachel scoffed. "Easier said than done." She pulled out some bobby pins from her hair and shook her head back and forth to let it down.

"Who are _you_ getting ready to meet?"

"Wha…?" Rachel turned around to see Kitty standing behind her, and jumped into the air. "Jesus, Kitty, don't scare me like that!"

"Don't believe in 'em," she said with a grin.

"Shouldn't you be standing guard?"

"I got scared."

"Do you remember the trigger word?"

"Yeah…"

"Then go back to your post, Kit. You'll be fine." Rachel turned back to the door as she heard Katherine's steps going back to the main entrance. With her mutant ability to send beings through time, she had placed a hypnotic suggestion on Katherine. All she would have to do is say the trigger word, and her body would be sent back in time. It was an excellent escape mechanism. It was also an excellent weapon – it had worked on Nimrod. Or had it?

Makeshift lockpicks in place, she tried to turn all four at once, which actually ended up as the two on top quickly followed by the two below. It was close enough – the door unbolted, but made no move to open. She threw her body against it and it slowly swung open. She walked through the entrance, and a large screen at the end of the room lit up. A man appeared on the screen, dressed in a white lab coat, with large glasses that hid his eyes.

"I suppose that since you have made it here, you have learned the secret of your reprogramming. Maverick, Wolverine, Silver Fox, Sabertooth, you were our four best soldiers. A pity that you must now be terminated."

The film stopped, and Rachel reeled around to hear a clicking before her. But nothing happened. The door that she had spent so long trying to open was now trying to close, but the sound of the gears whining let Rachel know that old age was keeping it from sealing her in. Thank heaven for small favors.

Katherine rubbed her hands up and down her arms, hopping in place, trying to keep warm in the Canadian snow drifts. It was creepy out here – too many angles to watch.

Rachel came on the headset. "Kitty, what am I even looking for?"

"Anything that helps, Ray. Anything about Nimrod."

"I wish you could give me something tangible to look for. I've been down practically every corridor and I haven't found anything at all. I'm beginning to think Nimrod wasn't even made here."

"Not a chance. Trask was here, I know it."

No answer.

"Ray?"

Nothing.

"Ray, are you ok?"

Static.

"Ray! Say something!"

A cold, metal voice came through the intercom. "CEASE AND DESIST MUTANT. I AM HERE TO APPREHEND THE MUTANT DELATOUR."

"Ray!" Katherine screamed into the headset.

No response.

"Hold on, Ray, I'm coming!"

Another voice, this time definitely living. "You wan' to play, mon ami? Five-card stud!" There was an explosion inside. "Jacks or bettah to open!"

"What on…it can't be!"

Rachel's voice responded. "Gambit, no, you can't defeat Nimrod alone!"

Katherine grabbed the headset to her mouth. "Ray, can you hear me!"

"Kitty? Come quick! You've got…" her voice faded into static.

Katherine turned back to the door and hesitated. Had the explosion…? She ran into the wall and passed through to the other side. Thank heaven for small favors.

Daniel Ketch was not unfamiliar with death. He had been dead before – what was he up to now, three times? Four? He wished the Sentinels would hurry up about it. He was getting sick of sharing a cell with The Revolting One, or hearing the whines next door from the pipsqueak with dark glasses. The only one who made sense here was Colossus. He knew the name – couldn't say he had seen any of these cats out on the road, though.

He didn't really mind it in here. Sure, the bars were limiting, but with the collar strapped around his neck preventing him from using any superhuman powers, he could actually digest his food here. While others used meal time to socialize, he sat alone at a table in the corner; he wasn't anti-social, he just enjoyed the chance to eat food without the flaming-skull-face. Being the Ghost Rider reincarnate had its downsides.

His cellmate Fugu and neighbors Colossus and Pitch were the only ones he knew here. And for Daniel, that was plenty. The three of them managed to keep their own fucking soap opera running.

Fugu was counting down the days until they were killed. He had worked out some secret formula that predicted four more days, only he had been wrong so far about everybody else down the line of cells. Chalk it up to not having a calculator? The man was disgusting – he smelled, he looked like he was on his last leg anyways, he had a nauseating smoker's cough that rattled his piss-tinted teeth – he was generally unpleasant. The man would murmur in his sleep, only certainly not in English. If Daniel didn't know better, he would say that his cellmate could talk in tongues. But being a descendant from the devil himself, Daniel certainly knew a few things about hell, and whatever Fugu was, he wasn't a demon.

Pitch and Colossus he didn't know too well. They talked, but only to themselves. Pitch kept a journal going, only the point of it escaped Daniel: not only was the kid _not_ getting out of here alive, immediately after writing an entry he would tell Colossus everything he had just written. If he wasn't keeping it a secret, _why bother writing in the first place_? Daniel chuckled. Kids. Pitch's latest conspiracy theory was that some new Sentinels didn't make a sound, so they could sneak up on you without knowing. And if you saw them coming? Does it really make a lot of difference? When the day is done all you can say once they throw you in the concentration camp is "at least I put up a fight". You're still in here with the rest of the fuckers.

Colossus was the only one doing something with his time. Or should I say "Piotr". It's funny, everyone can tell that Pitch is madly in love with Piotr, but he can't even pronounce his fucking name! Seeing the little Kentucky boy struggle to say "Pio-tr" in just two syllables might've been the highlight of Daniel's day. But Piotr didn't seem to swing that way – he had a girl waiting for him on the outside. His little "Katya". And that at least seem to give him purpose. He was always sitting with different people at meals, but Daniel noticed a few regulars. A man whom he knew only as Flicker. It was interesting to note who went by their mutant names in here, and who, with the loss of their powers, returned to their sapien ones. And a man whom Daniel was sure he had seen out on the open road, and had even had a few run-ins with. The man was mutant legend, but he doubted even a handful of people recognized the name he went by. James Howlett. But Daniel knew the biker routes, knew people who knew people who talked. So when a man with hair pointed up like horns and claws made from adamanitum asked for information, Daniel heard about it. How the undefeatable Wolverine of the X-Men had ended up caught and collared just like the rest of these damn mutants, Daniel couldn't even venture a guess. But nevertheless, every so often he would appear and speak with Colossus over watered-down oatmeal.

Flicker was also an interesting character. Solitary detention was located immediately below the mess hall – there was a lift in the corner that Daniel sat at every day that connected the communal gathering of every mutant interred here with a series of one-man hells. And about once a week, Daniel would see the human guards dressed in Sentinel uniform go down and pull Flicker up out of the lift shaft. Flicker would sit for roughly ten minutes, his eyes bouncing back and forth, taking in everything around him. The fool man was not stupid – he knew something was up. What the fuck that was, Daniel had no clue. Because after ten minutes, Flicker would throw over the table, start flinging plastic utensils with expert aim, and wreaking havoc. If he could ride a bike, the kid might be worth something after all. It often took seven or eight men to overpower the guy. He put up a good fight. But when all was said and done, he was often down there, and Daniel, ironically enough, was amongst the living for a change.

And from his position in the corner, Daniel noticed Colossus amassing a following. First James, on occasion, with more and more frequency. Then Pitch, Colossus' butt-buddy. Then Fugu, Daniel's own cellmate. And finally, one day, when Flicker had come up from solitary, before he had a chance to throw a tantrum, Fugu had approached him and whispered something. As he walked back to the table, Flicker stood up and followed him. There were five of them now. Huddled over each other in conversation, they all suddenly looked up and stared. At Daniel.

"What?" He shouted across the mass of dialogue clogging the room.

"Come over here," Fugu yelled back. "We want to talk to you."

Daniel wasn't a stupid man. He knew what this was about. Some fool plan to escape. He assumed they had found some way to use their powers, otherwise, forget it, there was no fucking way they were getting out of this hellhole alive. So that would make two strongmen – Colossus and Wolverine – a sniper – Flicker – and two good-for-nothings – Fugu and Pitch. Colossus and Wolverine had some kind of experience with these Sentinels. They could probably make it out of here alive. Daniel didn't particularly _want_ to go through the process of being reborn – first he'd have to haunt enough people to come close enough to the concentration camp, and then they'd have to summon him back, not even mentioning that it hurt like a _bitch_.

"I'm in." He said as he approached the table. He didn't even have a chance to sit down.

"Daniel Ketch?"

He spun around to see the most disgusting woman he had ever laid eyes on. She was six feet of some kind of Eastern European, but that wasn't the scary part. Every inch of her body was covered in what looked like facial hair – like a body mustache. And it hadn't been cleaned in a while. Daniel had to admit, nobody smelled good in a concentration camp, but _damn_ if she didn't reek. There was dirt trapped underneath all of those hairs, too. Must've been one of the Morlocks he had heard about, a group of underground mutants who couldn't show their face in the real world. He understood why now. But how did she…?

"How do you know my name?"

She reached out a hair covered hand, which he ignored. "My name is Thalberg. I am huge fan. I've watched your stunt biking since I was just little girl in Bavaria. I am biker myself, only not in here." She guffawed. Daniel almost puked.

"You ride, short-stuff?" Daniel turned around to see that Wolverine had lifted his head to address him.

"Yeah, I do. Ever heard of a guy named Cyber? I used to ride with him." Wolverine was silent. "Or the Dark Riders? You know, Cyber mentioned he was looking for a guy that kind of fit your description. Only he was much more feral. Even had an animal name. What was it? Werewolf? No…Wildebeest?"

"Enough, Daniel." Colossus pointed to the bench, indicating that Daniel should shut-up and sit down. He ignored it. "And what can we do for you, Ms. Thalberg?"

"Nothing. I am not interested in your escape plans…"

"Who said anything about escape!" Pitch piped up. Dumb kid. Had a _lot_ to learn.

"Six men conspiring over a table? Hah! The last time that happened I was with their wives in the back doing some conspiring of my own!" And with that she walked away. Motherfucking crazy bitch, she was. Daniel just hoped she didn't blow their cover and get a good laugh at it.

As soon as she was gone, Wolverine lunged up and pinned Daniel against a wall. "What do you know, short-stuff?"

"Are you really calling _me_ short?" Daniel didn't think he could be shoved any further into the wall. Apparently he was wrong.

"What do you know about _Cyber_?"

"My old riding buddy? He's dead now. Some kid named Genesis killed him. He was looking for an adamantium skeleton. Said some fellah' had lost his own."

"Grrr…" Wolverine let him drop to the floor. "This kid doesn't leave with us."

Fugu let out a nauseating cough. "I'm afraid that's not...possible. Daniel is in my cell." The raspy voice grated on Daniel's eardrums. "They will take us to the Grinder all together. And that is the only time we are uncollared."

Daniel stood up and put his arm around Wolverine. "Looks like you're stuck with me, _James_. Just one question, why are you working for…?"

Wolverine grabbed Daniel's arm and twisted it behind his back. "Just 'cuz I gotta' work with yah, doesn't mean I gotta' listen to you ramble on. Got it? Good. Siddown." He threw Daniel onto the bench.

"So," Flicker turned to Daniel, "what do you do?"

"That all depends. What have you _done_?"

Micah Jameson settled into a cracked red-leather booth and stretched out his legs. He had gone for the past three days without sleep, without rest, without food – just drawing pictures of hot dogs, "ripping" them (as he had termed his mutant power), and tricking his body into thinking it was real food. He tried to concentrate on it for a while, but exhaustion was starting to get the best of him, and his body couldn't survive on fake food. It was time for a meal, and he had been fortunate to find a diner in the middle of the desert. Mirage or not, he wasn't about to pass this up.

He had been searching for the Great Lord Magnus for almost two years now, starting shortly after leaving the orphanage. Looking back, he was almost amazed to think that two years ago, he was only fifteen years old, tossing around a football outside with kids his age, knowing nothing of the world around him, going to school, laughing – that was something he didn't do very often any more, laugh – and now. Well, now things were different. Two years on your own made you change a hell of a lot.

"Can I get you something?"

"Oh, I haven't even gotten a menu. I don't know what I want yet."

"Menu?" The waitress snorted, wiping some snot from her nose. "We don't got those. You want breffast?"

"Um…do you have eggs?"

The waitress walked away without looking back. Hopefully that meant they had eggs. He could really go for something scrambled. He was trying to remember the last time he had really good eggs. Like, _really_ good eggs. There was a family owned restaurant he had eaten at in New Orleans. They had some damn good eggs. But that was four states ago. Nevada wasn't Louisiana, and he had no plans on swinging up to Las Vegas. So he probably wouldn't be getting good eggs again any time soon.

Micah turned to see his car, parked outside, vanish into thin air. Damnit if eggs weren't distracting. Stupid things always got the better of him, so that what he had drawn and ripped into being and so _desperately_ needed faded away because he was too focused on some dumb eggs. If he was going to impress the Great Lord Magnus, he was going to have to do better.

The waitress came back with his eggs. A runny, gooey mess of sunny-side up. It didn't really matter to Micah – he wolfed it down with alacrity. Finished less than five minutes later, he pulled out his wallet from his back pocket. It was really just for show, he didn't have any money, hadn't since New Mexico. But behind that he pulled out a sketch pad and quickly drew a twenty dollar bill. A flick of the wrist, and the twenty dollars ripped out of the page into Micah's hand, and he put it on the table.

Twenty dollar bill.

Twenty dollar bill.

Twenty dollar bill.

Slowly, Trace slid out of the booth, repeating to himself over and over. Can't lose focus. Twenty dollar bill. Just get out of the restaurant. Twenty dollar bill. This isn't as hard as the car. Twenty dollar bill. The car had way too many parts, but money is just money. Twenty dollar bill. I mean the car had the engine, the wheels, the fuel tank, the windshield, the…

"Hey, what just happened?" Micah spun around to see the waitress standing over his table, holding nothing in her hands. Where he could only guess twenty dollars had just been. Shit.

He ran at the door, the hefty woman chasing after him screaming. Quickly, he dug into his pocket and grabbed his sketch book, flipping frantically as he ran to find some mode of transportation. Laser gun – no. Pen – no, although useful if he was out of them. Hot dog – his stomach queezed. Robot dinosaur - …the fuck? Unicycle. Unicycle? Why did he ever draw a…

"Get back here you son of a bitch!" Micah glanced behind him to see the woman now aiming a shotgun. He dove behind a well placed tree and fumbled through his notepad. Nothing else going.

_BANG_

The tree shook and a branch fell on his head, knocking him to the ground. How did he end up in a situation like this? He could hear running coming from the waitress' direction. Clearly she wasn't finished yet. He had one shot at this. He flipped open the pad and ripped out the unicycle. It took all of his strength to balance it enough for him to climb on, his head still raging uncontrollably. Unicycle. How the hell do you pedal one of these anyways? Unicycle. She was taking aim again – time to move! He churned his legs as fast as he could, ignoring the throbbing in his head, the blurriness of his vision. Why did he ever draw a _unicycle_!

"Coward! I'm calling the police!" But it was too late. Micah was already speeding down the road on his unicycle. Too many close calls recently. And he was still days outside of Los Angeles. The city of angels.

Once he got further down the road than he thought the waitress would ever chase him, he fell off the unicycle and let it go immediately. It disappeared before Micah even hit the ground. He lay there, staring up at the desert sun blazing overhead. Every so often, he had to step back from his life and reexamine just what the hell was going on. This – running from city to city for ten years, trying to track a man across the country, riding a _unicycle_ down a six mile stretch of highway – this wasn't _normal_. There were mutants out there who were just living, just chilling and grooving, sleeping in _beds_, eating expensive meals and paying with _real_ money, going to _school_. Damn he wished he could've gone to an arts school Especially now.

And of all the men to waste it on, why one he had never met? Was Magneto really all that great? Micah couldn't really tolerate humans either, not since an unfortunate event back at the orphanage involving a picture of a puppy, but the "Great Lord Magnus" certainly wasn't doing anything _more_ about it than Micah was. Shouldn't he have been looking for the parents that abandoned him? Or his girlfriend Rita back at the orphanage, who took off only days before he did? Of all the people in the world – why a washed up super-villain?

He sat up and immediately regretted it, his head still spinning from the branch strike. Feeling around in his pockets, Micah pulled out a pencil and his sketch pad and began to draw a more suitable vehicle. He had a long journey to go yet.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

There were blue eyes, and then there were blue eyes. As a girl in middle school, she had thought that boys could only be attractive if they had blue eyes (unlike her dull brown). And blonde hair, and nice, porcelain skin. Everyone in her adopted family had strikingly blue eyes. In church, she was overwhelmed with the Saints and Adonises of glass, light streaming through their azure eyes. In her history class, there was a boy who sat at a desk cattycorner to her with the prettiest blue eyes she had ever seen – she could stare into them for hours, trying to see what was inside, probe his mind through the two mirrors to his thought. Until one day, she probed too hard.

Thirteen years later, nobody knew about Gwynne's abilities, except her priest at church whom she told that fateful day. The boy survived the mental probing alright – Gwynne didn't know what it was at the _time_, only that she was trying to figure out if he had a crush on her (he did) – but he had seen her eyes at the time too. They were blue – _deep_ blue, blazing like fire. Her pupils disappeared, the whites of her eyes becoming engulfed in an tempest, so bright that it lit the space around her head in a cerulean halo.

The boy became so crazy that he had to be admitted to a mental institution for the clinically insane. He had developed a phobia of the color blue, and couldn't even look at himself in the mirror anymore.

Gwynne could sympathize with the boy – they had a lot in common. Ever since Gwynne had passed the bar exam last fall, she too had felt locked in a padded cell. Hers was padded in Illinois State legal code and frames protecting useless pieces of paper. As soon as she had stepped into this office, 25 years of her life meant nothing. She herself still felt like a twelve year old. She heard voices – that was certain. And of course, the color blue had been ruined for her.

The cell – office – wasn't really hers. It was a partner's at the firm, Mr. Birdman's, but he was never actually _in_ the office. He was always out at "important meetings," so his assistant partner had just stuck her in the room. Nobody expected her to stick around too long, anyways. The office that wasn't hers, that she couldn't _make_ her own, was a daily reminder of that. In the four months that she had been with the firm, the only personal item she had brought in was a small cross hanging above the computer.

"What's that?" Her boss Mr. Sebben was leaning on the doorframe, arms folded across a black suit, blue eyes pointed at the cross, blonde eyebrows arched. He could've been attractive when Gwynne was back in middle school.

"Just a…just a cross, sir. Is there a problem."

"I guess not, Mrs. Robinson." He let out a chuckle.

"It's Miss."

He ignored her. "It's just that…Mr. Birdman is Jewish. Don't think he'll take too kindly when he sees _that_ on his wall!" This time it was a full-on laugh, followed by something murmured under his breath. She thought it sounded like "l'chaim"? Mr. Sebben was definitely an oddball. In spite of the confrontation, Gwynne had left it on the wall – she couldn't imagine being in a place without the Lord as much as she was in that office. More often than not, dinner was some heated up leftovers (which made her feel ever-more the college student and ever-less the professional attorney), and sleep was on the couch under a forest green chenille throw. She prayed often in that office – more often than not _about_ work – and wasn't about to do it alone.

It said something about her job that she was thinking about it now, in the Basilica. This was her one time to escape, to come and be one with the Lord, and all she could do is think about her latest case. It was a mutant slander and libel case – the firm always gave her the cases that were unwinnable. She hadn't met the plaintiff yet, but apparently the girl went by only one name: Rogue. Gwynne didn't quite understand why mutants chose to go by different names – in Rogue's case, it made sense that there was an identity to hide, but now that the whole city of Chicago knew that she was a mutant, why keep the name?

It had been published in the Tribune almost a month ago – a list of 250 known mutants living in the Chicago area. None of these mutants were public with their powers, the danger of being placed into a concentration camp was too great. Gwynne certainly wasn't. _Another prayer answered, that I was not on that list_. Some of them hadn't even told family. Loved ones, friends, and coworkers found out through reading that the person they thought they knew wasn't who they thought at all. It was tough. Especially on the mutant. Rogue was a good test case for a lawsuit – she was the most likely to be targeted now by the Sentinels. So she stood the most to lose. It was later revealed that the Friends of Humanity, an anti-mutant militant group working halfway around the world, had been responsible for the list. There was a plaintiff, there was a defendant. And that's where Gwynne stepped in.

Here in Our Lady of Sorrows, Gwynne always felt like she could do anything. Being surrounded with images of strong Catholic women who had overcome so much more than she could ever dream, Gwynne sometimes believed she was communicating with them. It was hard for her to tell, still, what thoughts were hers, what belonged to those around her, and what was that divine impulse from her Lord, directing her, showing her where to go.

_O Mother of Sorrows_

_With strength from above_

_You stood by the cross_

_Sharing in the sufferings of Jesus,_

_And with tender care_

_You bore Him in your arms,_

_Mourning and weeping –_

Of course, doing work on a mutant case without revealing that she herself was a mutant was going to be troublesome at best. Most of the legal work done previously on the FoH was in New York, one of the locations of concentration camps. The camps had been put at fairly odd places. New York City, Des Moines, Little Rock, San Diego, Houston, and a few in Canada as well. New York she could understand – it was the bastion of the misunderstood, and who was more misunderstood than mutant kind? It was also the former home of the X-Men, with whom Rogue used to work. San Diego, Houston? Ok, sure, a lot of people means a lot of mutants. But Little Rock? _Des Moines_? The placement didn't make sense.

_I praise you for your faith,_

_Which accepted the life God_

_Planned for you._

_I praise you for your hope,_

_Which trusted that He would do_

_Great things through you._

_I praise you for your love,_

_In bearing, with Jesus_

_The sorrows of His passion-_

But, beyond reinventing the wheel, Gwynne really didn't have any other choices. So tomorrow, it would be off to New York, dodging Sentinels, playing at superhero, for a chance to get at the archive records. If things went wrong, there wouldn't be anyone there to help her – she had heard that the Sentinels had taken every last mutant remaining in New York City and collared them. She believed it. Back before they were in control, and there was still a resistance to their program, she had encountered one when she was still an undergrad at Colombia. It had identified her as a mutant, but was apparently looking for someone else, as the metallic voice discounted her as being "Not Rita" and moving on. On that night, she prayed extra hard for Rita.

_Holy Mary,_

_May I follow your example_

_And stand by all your children_

_Who need comfort and love-_

Meanwhile, Rogue would have to stay here and take care of herself. The anti-mutant rallies had started to get more and more violent since the Tribune article. People were afraid, paranoid – they didn't want the Sentinels taking an interest in Chicago, so they blamed whatever they could find. They didn't understand, and ignorance led to hate. But from what Gwynne had read on Rogue, she was one of the most powerful mutants in the country, if not the world. She would be fine on her own. Herself? What could she do besides feel what other people felt?

_Mother of God,_

_Stand by me in my trials_

_And care for me in my many needs._

_Pray for me now_

_And at the hour of my death._

_Amen._

She rose silently, opening her eyes to the statue of Mary standing at the front of the Basilica. After pausing for a moment to admire her beauty, her strength, Gwynne picked up her briefcase and walked briskly outside. A block down she could see another anti-mutant protest in its early stages, but she ignored it. If she didn't move quickly, she would be late for her 1-o'clock, and the heat in the Chicago summer was already making her sweat through her suit. Plus, her Lexus was double parked.

It was a half-hour drive almost due south to the Jackson park area – give or take Chicago traffic. The road just hugged the coast of Lake Michigan the whole way down, but the calm sapphire waves lapping at the rocky shore were lost on her. With her business suit on, her briefcase in the passenger seat, and her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her mind was all business. Rogue deserved to win the case, but how, given all the hysteria, Gwynne had no idea. They never taught this stuff in law school.

Rogue didn't exactly live in the best of neighborhoods around Chicago, but then again, she was probably paying a fourth of what Gwynne was to live in her East Kinzie penthouse. The day she got the job at Sebben, Birdman, and Peanut (she had yet to meet Mr. Peanut), she bought herself an expensive car and an expensive apartment with an expensive view of the Mile. Jesus had made sure to temper her materialism though – her view was dominated by the Tribune Tower. Now she couldn't stomach to look out her window.

She pulled into the garage for Rogue's apartment building. No, this wasn't the mile at all. Grabbing her briefcase, she swung out of the car and walked inside.

"Can I help you miss?"

"Hello," she put on her most professional voice to impress the security guard sitting at the desk in front of the elevator. It was only when she was dealing with people she _didn't_ need to impress that her voice was as stentorian. "My name is Gwynne Robinson, I'm here to meet with a client. She resides in apartment 905."

"Just a moment, ma'am." _Ma'am_! She was only 26! How dare he..."Uh, yes, is this 905?" He nodded, as though Rogue could see from nine floors up. "This is the front desk, you got a visitor. Says her name is Mrs. Robin…"

"Miss," she cut in, a bit too angrily. She would have to get a name tag or something.

The guard looked up at her from his chair, disgust in his eyes. But he continued, and corrected himself. "…A _Miss_ Robinson to see you?" He paused. "Alright, I'll send her up." He hung up and nodded to the elevator. "You know where to find her."

"Thank you." She walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. The sign above lit up – it was currently on the 11th floor. _Well this is awkward_. The elevator could not move slower, either, without becoming stationary. The security guard just stared at her. She gave him an awkward smile, and then focused her eyes down at her black heels. The guard let out a little snort, trying to bring the snot that had escaped his nose back in for one more go. Her foot was about to tab a hole through the floor, clear down to the garage, she could feel his glare driving into her even without looking up, it was disgusting, it was nauseating. It was blue.

The elevator door opened, and she all but dove inside, quickly jamming her palm against the nine button. She accidentally hit 10 by mistake as well, but at that point, she really didn't care. She stepped out and turned a corner, seeing 905 immediately on her right. Quickly, she fixed her hair, straightened her jacked and dusted it off, and cleared her throat before knocking.

A woman answered the door, completely unlike what Gwynne was expecting. The southern accent on the phone had given her the impression of a dumb blonde with fake boobs, suede leather pants, and chunks of turquoise around her neck. Instead, she was greeted by a sort-of-red-head with a long white streak down the middle of a huge mass of hair. She was wearing a green tank top over some tight fitting jeans, revealing a bit too much for age. Gwynne was almost embarrassed. Be professional.

"Are you Gwynne?"

"Yes, I am. You must be Rogue. It's good to finally meet you." She extended a hand.

Rogue ignored it. "Sure. Come on in." She motioned Gwynne inside. "You want some tea?"

"Do you have iced?"

"Only kind I got, sugah'." Rogue went into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator. Not knowing where to sit, Gwynne remained standing by the lacquer dining table. The apartment was modest but well furnished – very much in the style of a country kitchen. Along the wall above the wall-to-wall windows ran a collection of different chickens and roosters, figurines, light switch covers, postcards – all of them with chickens. Wallpapered ivy climbed the walls that weren't dominated by glass, and the spaces between, the edges nicely trimmed and with no air bubbles that Gwynne could see. Quaint was the only word to describe it.

"Here yah go." Rogue handed her a clear glass with iced tea in it. The chill would be refreshing. She took a sip and almost immediately spit it back into her cup. It tasted like syrup. It was all that she could do to force a smile and swallow. Slowly, she reached for a coaster and put her glass down on the table.

"I wanted to go over a few things with you about the case." It was time to get down to business. The faster she got out of there, the less she would have to drink of the sugar-water. She dug out a legal pad and pen from her briefcase.

"That's fine."

"What was your role with the late mutant group the X-Men?"

"Ah don't see what that has to do with…"

"Rogue, let me explain something." Gwynne put the pad down on the table. "You're suing for libel charges against the Chicago Tribune and slander against the Friends of Humanity. That means that you feel personally victimized by the information published about you."

"Ah am a victim! The Sentinels could come in here any day an' _kill_ me, an' nobody would say a damn _word_. You don't know what it's like ta have people stare atchu everywhere you go, wondrin' which one'll be the one that calls SHIELD."

Gwynne made a mental note to contact SHIELD – the Supreme Headquarters of International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division, the branch of government that was currently overseeing the Sentinel program – to see if what the FoH had done was legal. Or if there were any plans to act on the Tribune's list. "Believe me, Rogue, I know full well what you are going through. But to prove that the Friend's of Humanity's public exposure of your…mutanthood," she hesitated not because she was afraid of it, but because she honestly didn't know the word, "you have to prove that you weren't previously known as a mutant, _before_ the article. The X-Men had been known to make national headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post – if more people knew your were a mutant than _didn't_ before reading the Tribune, we've lost our case. So," she smoothed her pants and reached to the table, hesitating over the iced tea. She had to be polite, and she was a little thirsty. Maybe after being out for a little bit it was less sweet. She raised it to her lips. Oh no, still syrup. Quickly putting it down and grabbing her pad, she resumed. "So, I need to know – what was your role with the late mutant group, The X-Men?"

Rogue let out a pent up breath. "Where do ah staht?"

"From the beginning."

"All right. Get ready for the story ah'my life. After runnin' away from home, ah was brought in an' raised by a foster mom who found me at a train station. Ah thought she cahed for me. Turns out, she was usin' me tah fight 'genst the X-Men. Her name was Mystique."

Gwynne had heard the name before. A shape-shifter. No one knew where she was nowadays – shape-shifters were hard to keep track of, she imagined.

"Anyways, she brought me to the mansion in New York, 'long with some othe' cronies ah'hers. 'Course things didn't go as planned, and ah ended up sucking the life out ah'some poor innocen' gal. She went by Ms. Mahvel. That's where ah got my flight, my supah strength. Ah can…absorb people's lives, their powahs, their memries." Curled up in the fetal position on a reading chair by the window, Rogue turned to face the afternoon sun. "She's still inside ah'me."

"So how did you come to join the X-Men?"

"Aftah the break-in, ah left Mystique. Took some coaxin', but ah warmed upta Xavier's ways." She turned back to Gwynne. "He had a dream, ya know? Ah'm almost glad he ain't alive to see today. He'd a-killed himself to see such a failure."

"And what was your role at Xavier's school?"

"Ah was a full-fledged member ah'the X-Men. We wen' on missions, protectin' the world from othe' dangerous mutants." She sighed, with almost a bitter laugh in her lips. "We even helped out SHIELD a few times."

"Who was aware of your membership in the X-Men?"

"Nobody to know, sugah. Mah family don't care much where ah'm at, and Mystique was the only family ah ever knew. Besides Destiny…" she trailed off.

"Who was?"

"Mystique's…huh. Ah look back an' ah guess she was Mystique's girlfriend. Di'nt know it at the time, though. So they knew, but they're mutants just the same as ah am."

Gwynne noted the name – Destiny. She needed to know _everything_. What just a few short months with a firm had taught her was that Rule Number 1 was 'no surprises in the court room.' She underlined it, and then by the side wrote "Mystique's Girlfriend/ Alternate Stepmother?" After she was finished, she looked back up at Rogue.

"Rogue, Xavier made televised appearances. He traveled across the globe on a book tour. He was featured on the cover of _Time_. Did you participate in any of these events?"

Rogue shook her head. "Ah was a messed up child back then. Ah was in and out of that school more of'en than a rooster in a hen's coop. Xavier nevah brough' me on personal, fancy stuff like that. Ah was just aroun' for the missions."

"Many of Xavier's famed 'Peace Missions' involved breaking into secure government facilities. At these facilities, video recording placed many of his students at the scene of the crimes. Were you ever caught in this footage?"

"We weren' committing'_crimes_. We were helpin' those poor mutan's out!"

"Rogue," Gwynne looked up from her pad again. Maybe just a peak inside her mind to understand what was…no. "Please understand me. _I'm_ not accusing you of anything. But I need to know every last detail about your life if I'm going to mount an adequate claim. The Friends of Humanity have already filed a counter-claim saying that we don't have enough evidence, but that _you personally_ have caused them thousands of dollars in damages. And pre-trial motions are being heard in two weeks. If I see a videotape that I'm not expecting…"

"Ah heardja, ah heardja." Rogue looked down at the floor. "We…we destroyed some files at the Mutan' Registration Centah. SHIELD was usin' registration files to program the Sentinels. Paren's were tricked intah thinkin' that registerin' their mutan' teenagah would save 'em. And then the machines came at night."

"And what about the damage to the Friends?"

"We never stepped foot in their homes! We didn' _touch_ those creeps. Like ah said, the only place ah ever wen' was the Mutan' Registration Centah. That's it."

Gwynne paused in writing for a moment. _Then what is this…_ "Do you have any idea what this counter-claim is for, then?"

"Countah what?"

"Counter-claim. The Friends are claiming that _you_ did _them_ damage."

Rogue shook her head.

"I guess we'll find out at pre-trial." She folded up her note pad and stuck it back in her briefcase. The ice in her tea had melted. Maybe since it was watered down? "I'm going to be going to New York for a few days…"

"I'm glad _some_ people can still get in…" Rogue mumbled under her breath.

"I'm taking a risk by going there for you, Rogue. I want you to win this case. But you'll be on your own here for the rest of the week. Are you going to be ok?"

"Ah can handle mahself."

The meeting was winding down. Time to show her courtesy. She reached for the glass and downed what was left. It almost came right back up. Retching, but trying to put on a pleasant face, Gwynne stood up and put her hand out again for Rogue.

"Ah don' have my gloves."

"Oh." Gwynne was beginning to feel like the Queen of Awkward moments. "Right. Have a good week. Call me cell if anything goes wrong."

She almost ran past the security guard, just wanting to get into her car where she had a bottle of water waiting to take the taste of the tea out of her mouth. She pulled open the car door, threw her briefcase onto the floor in front of the passenger's seat, and reached for the bottle in the cup holder. Unscrewing the cap, she could already tell it wasn't going to be as satisfying as she had hoped. She gulped some down, and almost let it dribble back out – the heat and the insulated garage had managed to all but boil her water. Eager to get home to a well-air conditioned apartment and some chilled sparkling water, she slammed her car out of the garage and made the seashore drive home.

It was going to be a long trip to New York. Incoming traffic – by car, by train, and by plane – was scanned for mutant DNA. She really didn't understand the process herself, and she hated being ignorant, feeling entirely uneducated on these grandiose plots. She had always lived her life not wanting to get too involved in world affairs, pleased much more with her personal reflection of life. Now it seemed that entanglement was unavoidable, and without the proper tools, she felt useless. Like this DNA issue – she had never taken a computer science course, or an anatomy course for that matter. Gwynne was an expert in two things – man's law, and the Lord's law. Anything else, and she was useless.

She pulled into her reserved parking space in the underground garage of her building. It was far enough down that the air was surprisingly cool as she stepped out of her car. Gathering up her belongings, she walked over to the parking lot elevator and rode it up to her 14th story apartment. Technically, it was the 13th floor, but the building didn't _have_ a 13th floor – it just went from 12 to 14. Gwynne didn't care. She was religious, not superstitious.

Throwing her keys, her bottle of water, and her briefcase all onto the desk by the entrance, she head straight for the kitchen, grabbed some water out of the refrigerator, and emptied it down her throat. She gasped for air, still a little thirsty, but no longer about to die from a heat stroke. After catching her breath, Gwynne positioned herself in front of the computer. It was time to sneak _into_ the most dangerous prison-city in the world.

The Sentinels were scanning at JFK and LaGuardia. They were positioned at the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, as well as up and down the Hudson parkway, so Newark airport was out. She ran a quick search of the USDOT website to find "expected delays for travelers" to try and find some areas weak to infiltration. It seemed that every mode of transportation, save the subway, was being patrolled by Sentinels. Even at tollbooths, so just simply driving in wasn't an option. She figured the subway was just a practical issue – from her memory of the Sentinel, it wasn't going to fit into an underground tunnel any time soon.

So the only question remained – how, when the Sentinels were posted at every road check point _before_ any available subway station, was she supposed to get underground? She ran more searches for unchecked transportation methods into New York City and came up empty. So she left Google and headed straight to proboards/mutant.htm. She hadn't taken a computer course, but her Law and Technology class had taught her where to find the ones who had. Message boards. The internet was teeming with dorks, nerds, punks, scenesters, mutants, and the misunderstood all dying to stand on a soap box, tell you what they know, and undercut "the system". Within ten minutes, she had already found out there was an up-and-coming new profession in New York City, affectionately called Coyotes. Only rather than smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States, they were getting mutants _out_ of the Big Apple.

A little more searching and she found some. The methods and prices were all different, but the general gist was the same; there was an area of Long Island unguarded by Sentinels. Coyote ferries would run mutants from the island down to the coast outside Fort Hancock. From there, they were dodging military men and not six-story robots, down into Jersey where they could escape. The Sentinels didn't really have an interest in New Jersey. Then again, did anybody?

She spun her chair around and stared up at a framed painting of Jesus, arms spread above her on the wall, protecting her, enveloping her. Whenever she needed guidance, she always looked up at that painting. Usually, he answered her prayers by sending someone walking down the hallway outside her apartment, within mental reading range, who was thinking the correct answer. She sat there, leaning back on the chair with her legs crossed – she had, in the process of searching, kicked off her high heels underneath her desk – and waited. There was no one for a while, then the soft shuffle of shoes on the carpet outside. Gwynne didn't actually have to _do_ anything – she didn't have that much control over her power. It just…seemed to have a range. And when people stepped into that range, she automatically "tuned in." It made eating out at a restaurant incredibly unpleasant.

As always, the thoughts came in a jumble – nobody ever just thought one thing.

…_soup, poor guy will probably be in…_

…_about our spa treatments, I've never…_

…_tape American Idol tonight, otherwise…_

…_laffy-taffy, that laffy-taffy, shake that…_

…_suppose I should book my flight for…_

And she was gone. Taffy. Salt-water taffy. Atlantic City. New Jersey.

She was going to New Jersey. _The Lord works in mysterious ways_.

Gwynne had already pulled a few weekender trips to different locales for work, so she knew what to pack and what she would survive without. After packing up a light duffle bag – she doubted the "ferry" would have room for a suitcase – she struggled out of her clothes and into the shower. It took the last of her strength to turn on the ice cold water, and as soon as she did, she rest her naked back against the ceramic tile wall. Whether from heat stroke or overworking herself, she was exhausted. And tomorrow promised to be today one-hundred times over.

Sleep came easy that night – thankfully, her neighbor that shared a bedroom wall with her was not in that evening, so Gwynne's peaceful thoughts were all her own. She woke early to call the airport and book a flight – as soon as money concerns had drifted from her conscious thought, she had picked up a habit of booking day-of flights. Normally it was easy, but, as another yet another trial and tribulation for her to overcome, the receptionist had to be a…Gwynne couldn't think of another word…a bitch.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but there are no flights to Newark today on United Airlines."

"I'm sitting at the computer, looking at my computer screen. On it says that flight 2662 to Newark leaves O'Hare at 12:05 this afternoon. For some reason, your website won't let me continue to book it because it says your servers are down for repairs. So please, can you book me on flight 2662 for today?" _Lord give me the strength to deal with those less blessed than I_.

"Ma'am, there is no flight 2662 in service today."

"Can you put your manager on the phone?"

"My manager has stepped out at the moment."

"Then put whoever has more authority than you on the phone."

"Ma'am, I am fully capable of booking you on another flight. There is one that leaves for Newark tomorrow at 10:18 pm."

"That's a day late and a dollar short, so give me someone else."

There was a long pause on the other end. Finally, another woman answered the phone.

"This is Jennifer how can I assist you today." She said it without asking a question.

"Jennifer. Hi. This is Gwynne Robinson," _and I've about lost my patience with you_ "and I'm trying to book a first-class ticket on flight 2662 for today at 12:05 to Newark from O'Hare."

"One moment please." There was typing in the background. "Ok, Mrs. Robinson you're all set is there anything else we can do for you." Again, not a question.

"That's all, thank you." She slammed down the phone. She was going to be spending a lot of time in confessional once she got to New York.

After that was done, she printed off a few names of Coyotes in New York that ferried down to Fort Hancock and stuck it in her carry on, packed up her laptop, and head out the door. She had one more stop to make before the airport.

Gwynne dreaded going in to the office, but she had to leave word that she was going to be out of town for the next few days on work. She could just not show up, but it certainly wouldn't have been responsible of her. And she got the feeling they were looking for reasons to fire her.

The security guard at the front desk was one she knew, so she waved, and he waved back – a lot less awkward. Her powers got away from her and she saw a one-finned sea turtle in his mind. What? The elevator was there as soon as she had called it, and she waved her key-tag on the pad to take her up to the office. Today was shaping up to be better. In her times of need, it always was.

The door opened, and she stepped out into the all-too-familiar. Dodging into her office, she formulated a game plan as she took important files and papers and crammed them into her laptop case. She would leave a note with the secretary, then call once she was in New York. They couldn't stop her then, and she would be able to stay for longer than a few days. The more she thought about it, the more she was estimating a week or so in the city – especially with all of the effort getting in. Surveying the office for any other necessities, she took down the cross from the wall and tucked it under arm.

"Going somewhere?" Sebben was standing the same position he always stood in her door – leaning against the frame, arms folded. Same suit, too. She had the sudden thought that he only had one.

"New York. Working on the Friends of Humanity case." She tried to wriggle by him, but he let out his arm.

"New York? How's a girl with…_your_ talents getting into New York?"

"What are you…what are you talking about?" She scanned his mind to see if he knew.

"Don't do that," he said quickly.

"Do what?"

"That."

"How can you tell?"

"Your _eyes_?" He leaned forward as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. Because it was. And Gwynne was too thick-headed to see that. Of course anyone could tell she was a mutant. "And if I can tell, Mrs. Robinson –"

"Miss."

"- then I'd imagine the Sentinels can too! Hahahahaha!" He muttered something fast again. She could've sworn it was "Catholic in a gas chamber."

"I've got a flight to catch."

"Nice knowing you!" He waved his arm as she ran into the elevator, hoping to make a clean getaway. But of course, the door took forever to close, and she was left staring at him waving for a socially unacceptable period of time. So much for _that_ prayer.

After passing the security desk again and walking into the garage, she popped the trunk remotely as she approached her car. She placed the laptop case in and stopped to think. _I'm not crazy for doing this, am I? I'm just…I'm just following His will. Right? Are you…are you there?_

Gwynne didn't really think about the drive to the airport, or parking her car in satellite parking, or waiting for the shuttle bus, or even checking in, going through security, and ending up at the gate. Travel was routine for her, and she had plenty bearing down on her. For once, she was in a crowded terminal, and the dominant thoughts playing out in her mind were completely her own. Had she misread His word? Or, on a more practical matter, was she walking into suicide? She glanced around the waiting area, searching out minds that were as afraid of going to the east coast as she was. People were pensive, stressed, tired, excited – but she couldn't detect any fear. _Because most mutants who are afraid to go to New York aren't_ going_ to New York._

She boarded the plane last, even though first class had been invited to board first – she was going to be sitting on the plane for three hours, why would she want to spend an extra fifteen minutes voluntarily? Plus, everyone was already inside, so it made throwing her laptop case and carry-on into the overhead bin and ducking into the first row that much easier. She sank into the leather seat and buckled her seat belt. Saying a little prayer just in case, she drifted off to sleep like she always did – it made the flight go that much easier.

As usual, she drifted in and out of consciousness for the whole flight, waking up at the slightest turbulence, or when someone else's thoughts started intruding in her dreams, or when the flight attendant would make an announcement. She though about grabbing her laptop to get some work done, but decided against it – work would just stress her out more.

Four hours later – she hated being late, but for once, she didn't have an appointment to make – they landed in Newark. Gwynne woke up with a jolt as the plane hit the ground, and just as suddenly closed her eyes again, groggy from the sleep. Already though, she could hear other people starting to creep into her head.

_…crying baby, I'm going to kill…_

_…late for my meeting! Once again…_

_…fucking Sudoku, I can never…_

_…really should be a law against…_

_…on sound waves even possible?..._

_…wonderful piece, but poorly…_

_…time of need, watch over…_

_…believe I actually flew!..._

She needed to get out of that plane. Focusing herself on counting breaths, she covered her mouth with her hands, steadying the world around her that was going out of focus. Too longer after they landed, a sky bridge finally extended to connect the plane and the terminal. Gwynne leapt out of her seat and opened the overhead bin, realizing too late that it probably wasn't the smartest move. The world heaved.

_…I mean, really, if you can't…_

_…Sumimori-san, talking about…_

_…math class, either. Maybe I…_

_…wants to see that, and if you…_

_…voice being sucked into the…_

_…preferred the Rachmaninoff…_

_…in heaven. Amen…_

_…'till I tell Rita! She's gonna…_

She patted her face, staring straight ahead, refusing to move. Slowly, without looking up, she reached her arm into the bin and felt around for her laptop. She felt the textured bottom and pulled it down, backing slowly so it wouldn't hit her on the head. After she put it down, she reached up for the carry-on. She hated travel. Suddenly, she got a thought of the person seated behind her and turned around, not too quickly this time.

"No, I'm not blind."

"Oh, really? Then…I mean, I wasn't…that is, I didn't mean to say that…"

Gwynne hoisted the bag around her shoulders, pulled out the retractable handle on the carry-on and head out of the bridge. She hated to acknowledge it, but she was in no position to be attempting a major spy operation this evening. She would have to find a hotel for the night, and set sail tomorrow – it meant the waste of the day, but time to catch her breath from the shock. Rest was more important that time.

Quickly composed with the slight outward arrogance law school had helped her perfect, she steadily walked through the terminal. New Jersey was even _less_ than it was cracked up to be – at least in O'Hare, the smoking lounges were _covered_. Here, the "smoking lounges" were just boxes taped off on the ground that the smokers had to stand in. Her hair was going to stink of cigarette's by the time she got to a hotel.

She passed by security, reached the baggage claim – she had carried on her only belongings, so she walked right past – and head for the taxi line. After wheeling herself down empty rows of a plastic-rope labyrinth, she reached the director who told her to go all the way down to the end of the block and get into taxi number 27. The driver helped her load her baggage into the trunk, and she slipped into the back seat.

"Where to?"

There was no point in wasting a day, really. At the very least, she could do some research. "Fort Hancock please."

The driver eyed her in the rear-view mirror. She had dressed as professionally as possible for travel so that she would appear 'in place' at the Fort. "Uh…ma'am. Fort Hancock is over an hour away. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Just drive, please." _Am I sure? Are _you_ sure?_

For the first leg of the trip, she wasn't even thinking – she dazed in and out of understanding, and she appreciated that, because when she was aware of her thought, she was aware of the sleeze and filth that her driver was hoping to do to her. His eyeing her 'professionalism' was getting dirtier every time his thoughts flew into her head. After they turned off the highway, and it was clear that they would be reaching Fort Hancock soon, she started to panic. What was she doing here? Especially if she wasn't setting out today, wasn't this just an unnecessary risk, flaunting in front of the guards? No, she could make arrangements for tomorrow. Or something like that.

The taxi came to a stop on the side of the road, no where in site of the fort. The driver turned around.

"Now, why don't you tell me what a pretty lil' thing like you is doing all the way out here."

_Lord forgive me for this lie. I am not strong enough yet to pass this test._ "Please sir, I'm going to be late for a meeting."

"Nonsense, you don't need to be there for a little while, hon." He swung out of the car and in one motion swung the door open and crawled into the back seat. She reached for the other door. Locked. _O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me_. Panicked, she kicked him in the face with her heels. He recoiled, wiping away the blood she had drawn from his eyes.

"Bitch!" He placed two large hands on her legs and pulled at her, climbing out of the car. Her hand reached for the door handle, snapping it off. Clawing at the seat, she was suddenly whipped around and the world went out of focus again.

_…fuck the bitch, nobody…_

_…need a good lay, and…_

_…pretending to be a business.._

She shook her head violently, trying to make the world clear again. _O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me._

_…sex…_

_…sex…_

_…sex…_

_…sex…_

He shoved her arms back against the road, forcing her to realize her position, back down on the asphalt, pinned. She raised her knee to try and strike him in the groin, but he pounced his leg down before she could do anything. She could only scream.

"Don't yell, you fucking cunt!" He bent down and ripped her pants down with his teeth. She bucked, struggling again, but he had overpowered her without even thinking about it. How was he doing this? He grabbed her two hands into one of his, and used the other to finish the job. She was running out of time.

"Help! For God's sake, somebody help me!"

"I said stop screaming, cunt!" He scratched across her face and her shouts became cries of agony and terror. She couldn't…couldn't do…the tears…she could taste blood. He was a…a…a mutant…with hands that…._O God come to my…to my…._her cries were so stuttered that she couldn't make out the words herself.

He had already gotten his pants undone. She only had one other option. _What are you thinking_?

_…sex sex sex sex sex…_

_…fucking bitch is getting…_

_…Silverfox, damn she was…_

_…from Wolverine, too…_

_…no papa, don't, please…_

_…GET…OUT…OF MY HEAD!..._

He stopped fumbling at her underwear and let out a snarl. "Bitch! What are you doing to me?"

Keep…thinking.

"No! NO! Get out! Stop it! STOP!"

_O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me_.

She could see the blue reflected in his eyes before he collapsed in a seizure on top of her.

Gwynne knew that she had to get up, do something, but instead she lay there, crushed underneath this _beast_ – he had never been a man – weeping. But she didn't weep for herself. She wept for _him_. In order to stop him, she had delved so deep into his conscious that she couldn't sort out what was him and what was her.

His name was...had been…Victor Creed. Now he went only by the name 'Sabertooth', given to him by some bizarre Canadian government agency called Weapon X. She knew everything about his life – how he had been abused by his father, how he had returned the favor to his own son, born to him by another mutant dressed in…no, not dressed in…her _skin_ was blue. Her name was Mystique. The son's name was Graydon.

She knew about his ever-driving desire to kill a man named Wolverine, who was in the program with her – him, Sabertooth. _I was never in the program_. She remembered raping someone else, someone named Silverfox, Wolverine's wife, to take her revenge before killing her. She was filled with his rage and her pity. And her fear when she realized that all that was inside her made complete sense.

_Kyrie eleison, Christe eleyson, Kyrie eleyson. Kyrie eleison, Christe eleyson, Kyrie eleyson.Kyrie…_

She rolled the body off of her and felt a sudden pain of absence. He was trapped inside of her alright. She could tell – he was trying to get out.

_Well, I can't lie here naked forever_. She stood up and tried to put her suit pants back on. He had ripped the belt into shreds, and the clasp, along with half of the zipper, had been torn off. _He'll pay for this. I'll rip out his heart, his lungs, his intestines until he can't heal them back anymore. He won't last long!_ _No! Get out of my head! Kyrie eleison…_

She reached into the drivers seat and grabbed the keys from the wheel. _Do it, call the police, tell them what I did to you! Tell them what you did to me, mutie!_ She knew it wasn't an option. Back in Chicago, Gwynne had heard time and time again of rape cases in which the victim refused to come forward, or waited years for the evidence to disappear before telling anyone. And she never understood why – these _creeps_ had to pay for what they did. _Everybody understands it wasn't your fault, everybody understands that you are the_ victim _here_. Now she knew why.

Knowing that it would pop the trunk, she pushed the second of three buttons on the key remote. She waddled over, holding her pants up, and grabbed her laptop case. The clasp came off in one tug. It was a little thick – and it hardly matcher her outfit – but her cold logic had kicked into overdrive, and was looking to help her survive until she at least made it to New York. Her hands went to the belt loops, threading the case strap through quickly, tying it in front. _What about me, you little bitch! Gonna fix me like MacGyver too?_ She turned back and looked at the body, laying still but breathing. Gwynne knew that it was just a hollow shell – there was nothing left inside. She rolled him to the other side of the road where there was a ditch before a steep rising hill. He would be hidden from passer bys going _to_ the fort – but in plain sight of those going in the other direction. It wouldn't do much except buy her time. _Time? What are you afraid of, bitch? Huh? WHO ARE YOU HIDING FROM_?

Her makeup bag was in the carry-on luggage, on the top. She grabbed it and sat down in the driver's seat of the taxi, using the sun-visor mirror to clean herself up. She would have to work quickly – _where are my priorities? Lord, where are you taking me? To Hell, you little bitch!_ It wasn't going to be pretty. Lick thumb, rub off ruined makeup, reapply, repeat. Five minutes later she was…presentable. _Ugly cunt, I liked you better crying and RUINED_! _Christe eleyson, Kyrie…_

The key went back into the ignition, and she was driving down the road along the Atlantic coast with a jerry-rigged outfit and slapdash makeup. Not exactly how she was planning on entering New York City for the first time. Chalk it up to one more…awkward…moment. A tear escaped her eye, running down her cheek and ruining her hard work. _An awkward moment? You little whore, this is gonna last a lot longer than a moment! I'm IN YOU! The IRONY – it KILLS ME. Wait, YOU ALREADY DID THAT. What's your God going to say now?_

She didn't have the answer. She didn't have a lot of answers.

Gwynne kept driving, after another 3 minutes passing the ridge on the side of the road. It had been blocking her view of the top of a small mountain dominating the peninsula. Overlooking the area, positioned so that she could only assume everyone up there already knew what had happened, was Fort Hancock. _What you did to me! LET ME GO!_ _You think I want this? You think I _want_ the…thing…that tried to…r…r…THE WORD IS RAPE YOU BITCH…inside my head?_ She kept driving along the highway, hugging the coast just like she did every day in Chicago. Familiarity was a small but welcome blessing.

After another few minutes, she found a roadside café with a sign flashing "DINER". Blunt enough. She pulled the taxi into the graveled parking lot and put the park break on, tightening the chains and simultaneously releasing all of the tension from her neck and shoulders. It was gone at once. All she wanted now was a good meal where no one could find her looking a mess. The sun was setting, and soon she'd be able to head out to the coast and start ferry-hunting. _Hungry, you freak? You could've had all you wanted of my thick, hairy KYRIE ELEISON CHRISTE ELEISON you can't hide from me forever in your fucking chants and prayers to a God that doesn't hear, Gwynne! I'M INSIDE YOU, OR DIDN'T YOU FIGURE THAT OUT YET?_

Frankly, Gwynne wasn't accustomed to this…type of cuisine. But she was suddenly ravished for some home-style cooking – hush puppies to be exact. She walked inside and saw two or three tables occupied, but otherwise the diner was empty. _Thank heaven for small favors_. She all but dove into a table, eager to hide her face and tech-savvy outfit, and looked around for a menu to hide her face.

""Can I get you something?"

"Oh, do you have a menu?."

"Menu?" The waitress snorted, wiping some snot from her nose. Gwynne almost gagged. "We don't got those. You want dinner?"

"Um…do you have hush puppies?"

The waitress glared down at her. "The shoe?"

"No, the fried…never mind. Do you still serve breakfast?" No response. "Do you have eggs?"

The waitress walked away without looking back. Hopefully that meant they had eggs. She didn't even asked how she wanted them. _What does it matter?...Which one of us said that? You tell me!_ Just as long as they didn't come back scrambled. There was nothing to do now but wait. She let her guard down, and thoughts from the diner started to mix into her already throbbing migraine.

_…for no sour cream, and what…_

_…can't believe I left them…_

_…it's like to be a civvy. I could…_

_…some weird, suppressed, sexual…_

_…who the hell eats shoes? Must…_

_…y ella se hizo totalmente loca…_

Her hand came down from grabbing her skull with a clump of hair in it. She didn't even know she had been grabbing that hard. _Get ready for more of that, pretty. I've been known to shed particularly heavy amounts when I'm turned on. _She felt a licking on the back of her neck and swatted behind her. _I'm gonna have fun with this!_ It was dry, but she shuddered – the feeling was real. _How are you doing this? Want some more, you fucking slut?_ Nothing happened. _You aren't in full control. Yeah but I'm learning!_

"Are you…ok?" A tall man with brown hair stood over her, hand reaching for her.

"GET BACK! GET….BACK!" She scrunched herself into the corner of the booth. He pulled his arm back quickly.

"I'm…sorry. I felt you…feeling your way around here." He lowered his voice. "You're a psychic, right?"

"Who the hell are you?"

He held his finger up to his mouth. "Shhh. I'm a mutant, too," he whispered. "It's ok. What's happening?"

_His name is Cyclops. He's a fucking little pansy-ass teacher's pet. He's as good as useless now that his precious Xavier is dead. Grrr I should just END HIS MISERY HERE!_ She jumped out of her chair and reached for his throat.

"What…what are you….cchaaaa," he fumbled for her hands, but her grip was too strong.

"You dirty _fuck_! How does it feel to have your dream _smashed under their feet_? You fools imprison Magneto, the _only_ one who can save us, and they _ruin_ you! Ha!" The whole diner was looking on in shock now, but nobody made a move. He had been counting on it. "It's only fitting that the X-Men's pride and joy be the first _sacrificed_ to the very people _you were trying to protect_!"

Cyclops jerked his head upwards, flinging the red glasses he had been wearing behind him. Gwynne knew what that meant and dropped her grip. Why had she even grabbed him in the first place? He bent over and rubbed his neck, keeping his eyes shut – it gave her the chance to take him in for the first time. Uncharacteristically – it still disturbed her that she _knew _that – he was wearing a wife beater and torn blue jeans. He must have been traveling in disguise, or hadn't done laundry in a while.

"I don't know who you are, but you sure as hell know a lot more than you're supposed to." His head swung up and stared her through with eyes still closed. "I don't want to open them here, and I don't think you do either. Mind getting me my glasses?"

"Oh God," oh God, "oh God," _oh God_, "I am so…so sorry," _forgive me my trespasses_ "I don't know what came over me. Here let me…Cyclops, right?"

"Yea. My glasses?"

"Right." She ran over and picked up the ruby-red sunglasses and held them to his outstretched hand. "Here you go."

"Thanks." He put them on and looked around, as though just seeing the café for the first time. "Mind telling me what that was about?"

"You still want your eggs?" The waitress stood holding a plate of scrambled eggs, her other hand on her hip as though she would be perfectly happy with Gwynne leaving the State of New Jersey. She wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

"Yes please, just leave them on the table, thank you." _Sssssss._ He was calming down. She thought. Motioning with her hand, she tilted her head to Cyclops. "Have a seat, Cyclops."

"Please. Call me Scott." He sat on the other side of the table, postured like a cat knowing when to make a break for it.

"Don't worry," she said sitting down, "or maybe worry? I don't know. In answer to your question, too."

"Question?"

" 'Mind telling me what that was about?' "

"Right." He paused. "Is that it?"

"Well, he knows you, so I guess you know him. Does the name Sabertooth ring any bells?"

"You're _friends_ with that creep!" He reached up for his glasses.

"No no! No." She couldn't hold back laughing at the situation. She really _was_ unstable if she found this funny! "He…he tried to rape me about a half-hour ago."

Scott lifted himself out of the booth, slamming his hands on the table. "_What_? Where is he, the fucking creep?"

"In a ditch about a mile south of here."

He sat back down. "Oh. Well done."

"Not really. You thought I was a psychic. Close, I'm an empath. I can't really get as _in depth_ as a psychic. And I can't control it." _Cue story-of-my-life_.

Scott ran his hands through his hair. It was then that she _really _noticed how attractive he was. He hadn't shaven in a few days – the skuzzy look fit him well, better than the baby-face images floating through her head. And he had a shapely jaw line, not to mention a six-pack chest she had seen before…somewhere. Or Sabertooth had. "There used to be a school that could've helped you. In upstate New York."

"Xavier's School for the Gifted."

"You've heard about it?" He perked up.

"No. Well. That's the second part of the story. When I knocked Sabertooth out…empathically…his conscious…that is, I think…Sabertooth is in my head."

Scott looked taken aback. Gwynne could imagine the questioning eyes behind the reflective glasses. "Come again?"

"He's in my head. I have his memories. His _thoughts_. He knows he's there too. He's been talking to me." _And licking you_. "He's the one that attacked you." _And smelling you._ "He knew who you were, so I knew by default." _And fucking you ENOUGH! What are you gonna do about it, you little whore!_ "That's how I came up with the name of Xavier's school. I hadn't heard of Xavier until Sabertooth mentioned him."

"Huh." He shook is head. "I've seen worse in my day. So any thoughts of how to get him out?"

"No idea. Not really my concern right now. I have to get to New York."

"Are you _mad_? Maybe you haven't heard of the Sentinels…"

"I have." She was sick of people questioning her decisions. This ended here. "I have a client in hiding back where I'm from who's suing the Friends of Humanity as well as other businesses for slander and libel charges. I was informed that in the city archives of New York there are six other cases of mutants who have attempted similar law suits, but all of those cases remain open. I need to find out what happened to those mutants, and the information is in those archives."

She suddenly got hit with his overwhelming emotion.

_…what I couldn't, for my…_

_…leaving them to die…_

_…won't make it, but I…_

_…encourage what I know…_

_…talk to Callisto, maybe…_

"It's a suicide trip, don't even…"

Gwynne ignored him, and leaned in curious. "What are you so wracked with guilt about?"

Scott wasn't surprised. "I could feel you poking around in there."

"I wasn't poking, _you_ were broadcasting." _Can _everyone_ tell that I'm a mutant? I should just turn myself in to a concentration camp now! _"And besides, how can you detect psychics in your brain – you made reference to it earlier."

"My wife is one." His face became pale.

"I don't see a ring."

"I don't see how it's any of your fucking business."

"_Excuse me_!"

"Listen, I have my own demons to fight. You want to go to New York? Fine. Talk with Callisto, she's a ferrywoman about three miles north of here. She'll be coming back to this side in about an hour. If you'll excuse me…" he got up to leave, clearly agitated.

"Wait."

He kept walking, out the door, and down the way she came, until he was out of sight.

A meeting with someone she didn't know, but did. A conversation that she had secretly hoped would lead to more answers had led to more questions. But she had a lead to get to New York. Her name was Callisto. _The bitch who got away. What? She was almost mine back in New York. Goody goody we'll have our little tryst again! _Gwynne remembered the dank of the sewers, the cold smell burning her nostrils, and the lifeless bodies surrounding her. She had killed them all, but their leader had escaped. She would have her revenge. _What are you _doing_ to me? O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest PUT A SOCK IN IT, BITCH all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because IT WAS ME, NOT YOU! IF YOU THINK HE'LL GIVE YOU CREDIT FOR THIS, YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING, WHORE! they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of ME, DO YOU HEAR ME? grrrrRAAAR you are DEAD! YOU HEAR ME LITTLE CUNT? WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE – I'LL KILL YOU! JUST LIKE I_ _Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin._ She shivered, staring down at her now-cold scrambled eggs. There wasn't much point to this, anymore – she had lost her appetite, and the sun had most definitely set. It was time to go find this Callisto._ MMMMmmmmm_.

Leaving a twenty that should've more than covered the uneaten meal and whatever tip the waitress thought she deserved for her "service," Gwynne briskly walked out of the diner and got into her car. She reached for the seatbelt and noticed that her hands were shaking uncontrollably. _What are you afraid of? Things are just about to get interesting!_ Distracted, fumbling for the belt, she was hit again with the thoughts of those still eating inside.

_…fancy-pants, shoe-eating attorney…_

_…to make trails before this military…_

_…ready to go home, I've been out…_

_…también, pero dijo no, no sé por…_

_…killed them all, Sinister will make…_

She was better at controlling her…gift…than this. Knowing that didn't fix the problem, though. Recently, the only time her head had been clear was when she prayed, and within the past hour, even that had changed. _It's because you got me now, bitch_. The cursing wasn't even startling her anymore. Holding her head with a shaking hand, she gave one more prayer before heading out. _O God, relying on your almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Your grace, and life everlasting through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer._ Sabertooth didn't even shuffle. Control – it was all about control.

Gwynne gathered her wits, and turned on the car. She would have to take it slow – forgetting her unwelcome mental guest _You can NEVER forget about me! I _am_ you!_ she was looking for a mutant who was not only skilled at hiding, but had every motive to keep low. At least, out of all of this, Gwynne knew what Callisto looked like.

The spotlight from the top of the fort whooped around like a bird of light flying overhead. Every time it passed from behind her overhead it seemed to pause on the taxi, crawling at a geriatric speed limit. It would outpace her, eventually, and then come back less than a minute later. After eight or nine revolutions, Gwynne finally realized that they weren't going to be coming after her. At least, not because she was driving a taxi five miles an hour down the Atlantic Drive. She also realized she wasn't going to see Callisto on the coast from here.

After the eye in the sky made another pass, she pulled over to the hidden side of the road and parked in the graveled ditch. The more she thought about what was happening, the more she realized that it was tonight or no night. She wasn't coming out here again, she certainly wouldn't be able to sleep tonight _I'm not letting you EVER sleep!_ and if she didn't do it right now, she was going to lose the courage. _Dear God, give me courage, for perhaps I lack it more than anything else_. She turned the car off, cut the headlights, and popped the trunk. _I need courage before men against their threats and against their seductions. Threats and seductions? How sweet. I was beginning to think you were ignoring me._ After unloading the trunk, she hitched the laptop case around her shoulders. It seemed lighter than before. _I need courage to bear unkindness, mockery, contradiction. I'm not being unkind, am I? Mocking you? Contradicting your nature? After all, it was YOU who put me here – are we that different? ANSWER ME!_ She pulled up the handle on the carry-on and waited for the spotlight to pass again before running across the street, towards the shore. _I need courage to fight against the devil Well you've already failed that fight, against terrors and troubles, temptations, attractions, darkness and false lights, against tears, depression, and above all fear. What are you afraid of? That you'll LIKE IT?_ There were no sands or seashells or plastic lounge chairs – the whole shore was rock, and the wheels were having trouble going over the bumpy ground. If it was anything but clothes and makeup in there, Gwynne would be worried. Now, she just wanted to be done. _I need Your help, dear God. Strengthen me with Your love and Your grace._ She hadn't been on the coast for a minute, and already she could see in the distance a small black boat almost at the shore up the coastline. _Console me with Your blessed Presence and grant me the courage to persevere until I am with You forever in heaven. In hell!_ She picked up the carry-on by the side handle and ran as fast as she could, weighted down as she was.

Gwynne reached the landing point at the same time as the boat had. The driver had been using an oar – why such ancient technology? _Motorboat's too noisy. Thanks._ A tall woman dressed in black stuck ferociously long legs out the side of the boat and hoisted herself out. She was dark skinned, sporting a power-woman haircut, although what business would allow a woman with an _eye-patch_ to work with them was beyond her. Gwynne guess smuggling was her full time job now. She already knew the name.

"Callisto." The woman turned around at hearing her name, as two other mutants, both far more colorful, got out of the boat. One even had a pair of rainbow wings.

"Keep it down." Callisto walked up to Gwynne. "What can I do for a fellow mutant?"

_Callisto, the supersensitive. Callisto, the one that got away. How I've missed you. We'll finish this tonight_. Gwynne didn't know any prayers to say asking for forgiveness of thoughts of rape – it really hadn't occurred to her to ask her priest. But she knew God forgave her, or Sabertooth, or whoever was thinking these thoughts. Callisto stood there, hand on her hips, waiting for a response. She should probably say something soon.

"I…I need to go…" Something suddenly dawned on her. "How do _you_ know I'm a mutant?"

"You're asking me for a favor? I doubt you're flat-scan."

"Flat-scan?"

"Homo-sapien. Human. Not-mutant. You really haven't been around girlie, have you?" Callisto rolled her eyes and took the hand off her hip, only to cross her arms. "I'm waiting for a friend of mine to show up here. Whatever it is you want will have to wait."

"I want to get into the city." _Friend? I killed every one of your pathetic friends you little fuck!_ _You have no one left, no home, no troops – and when I'm done with you, no dignity either_.

"Now I _know_ you're crazy." She gestured over the bay towards the barely visible New York skyline. "That, over there, is a hunting ground for mutants. You take a step inside their territory, and they'll smell the mutant on you."

"Look," Gwynne's voice was stronger than she believed she could muster, but it was betrayed by her hands, shaking like an earthquake. "Every one of us is here for a reason. God is having us fight the fight in our own, personal way, each one of us a piece of the puzzle. You're saving mutants. So am I. But to do it, I have to go to New York." The last words she stressed as she gestured in the same direction Callisto had.

"God? You believe in that story, girlie? Let me tell you something," she put her hand on her heart. "If there _was_ a God, he died a long time ago. Look around you – where's your God now? Caliban!"

Gwynne turned around to see who Callisto had shouted to. Walking down the rocky beach was a man dressed in all black. He still stuck out like a sore thumb – his skin was a ghostly, pale white, and his yellow eyes lit a glow around him. _What is it with mutants and eyes? _This man, she certainly had no memories of. It was good to legitimately meet someone for the first time in what seemed like days.

He approached Callisto, entirely ignoring Gwynne. "Have you seen them?"

_Kill him. He must be one of them. Stupid Havok rescuing those vile, disgusting freaks of nature. They don't deserve the name _mutant

"No one matching the description. Tell you the truth, it's been mostly women. Why are they so important to…"

"It's none of your concern." He suddenly turned to face Gwynne, noticing her for the first time. "And where's your friend?"

Taken aback, Gwynne glanced at Callisto for reassurance that this man was safe. "My…my friend," she stuttered.

"Your _mutant _friend. There are four mutants here. One is me, one is Callisto, one is you. But I detect a fourth entity nearby. Where are they?"

_He knows I'm here. Have to stop him! Have to God of power and mercy, maker and love of peace, to know you is to live Morlocks have to be eradicated! Without them dead, Sinister won't grant me the and to serve you is to reign. Through the intercession of St. son of a bitch killed Blockbuster and Prism, he deserves to Michael, the archangel NO not him! Anyone but him! _It was working. She had to keep Sabertooth in check – another outbreak and she wouldn't be getting anywhere with Callisto.

"Perhaps…a few miles up, I was assaulted by a mutant with rather…violent tendencies. I fought back, but a result of the battle was that, well…he's trapped inside of me. And I don't quite know how to release him. His consciousness might be what you're detecting – I'm sorry did you say your name was Caliban?"

"I didn't say." He turned back to Callisto – apparently the explanation was enough for him. "I'm going to go check on a few things. Stay in touch, and let me know if you catch the slightest sight of them. Remember, one of them has eyes that don't stay still…"

"…and the other looks like you, only with a green tinge and a smoker's cough. I remember, Caliban. I just wish you could tell me what this is for, after all we've been through together."

He didn't answer. Instead, he turned back to Gwynne, his eyes flaring just for a moment, before walking back the way he came. There was a long pause as the two watched the man disappear into darkness, but Gwynne finally broke the silence.

"So can you take me to New York?"

Callisto eyed the two bags that Gwynne had with her. After judging them, weighing them, judging Gwynne, all with her eyes, Callisto finally nodded.

"Throw your things in the boat. And don't make so much noise."

It was a matter of moments before they were sailing towards the city in silence. The black water lapped up against the boat, bringing with it the smell of sewage and death. Gwynne started to get a headache, but at least Sabertooth was in a corner whimpering._ Not…him…_She checked her bags, rechecked them, and re-rechecked them. Part of it was paranoia. Part of it was boredom.

Rowing with an oar was slow going, but Gwynne appreciated the need for silence, ferrying between a military base and the Sentinel camps. But a little talking might just pass the time.

"So what do you do?"

"Super-sense. I hear, smell, taste, see better." She didn't even glance back at Gwynne as she answered. More silence. The lights from the city created a brilliant white aura around what was now talked about as a death pit. She was beginning to make out parts of the skyline – the Fantastic Four headquarters, the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty, the Third World Trade Center. And as they got closer, she could see them. In the distance of course, but she could see giant silhouettes of human shapes, sixty feet too tall to be human. The Sentinels.

"Do you know anything about the X-Men?"

This time she caught Callisto's attention, still rowing. "I've had a few run-ins with them here and there. In the end, they're good kids. It's a shame it had to end the way it did, but without Xavier, they're just that – kids." She turned back to the front of the boat. This time, Gwynne didn't give her the chance to prolong the silence.

"What about someone named Sabertooth."

The boat suddenly stopped moving. A breath of wind pushed some hair out of her eyes. The next thing she felt was the hard wooden slap of an oar across her face, slamming her into the water. She struggled against the undercurrents, trying to stay afloat in her business suit, grabbing at the edge of the boat. She reached up a hand to hold on to the side, and it was swatted down by the oar again. The water consumed her, trying to bring her deeper and deeper into the dark abyss below. Another arm shot out of the water, trying to touch God but getting only air. She pulled herself to the surface again, only to see Callisto throwing the two bags out of the boat and into the bay in the other direction.

"Anyone who knows Sabertooth shall be punished! VENGENCE FOR THE GENE NATION!" The oar reached out towards her and slammed against the top of her head, forcing her down underwater again. Her breathing was getting too hard, she was loosing too much control over her body, over everything.

She broke.

…_SLAUGHTERED MY FAMILY…_

_…HAVE THEIR SACRIFICE…_

_…THOUSANDS BECAUSE OF…_

_…TO ANYONE WHO EVEN…_

_…RAAAAAAAAAAWR!..._

Her body went limp, and Gwynne gave up. On trying to control Sabertooth or her powers. On trying to reach the service. On ever reaching New York. On God. The only thing she did was focus on conserving her breath.

It seemed like far too much time had passed. She should be dead, but instead she drowned further and further, down to the bottom, not holding her breath, just not breathing. Suspended animation. It came naturally to her. And now she heard His word – it was time to come to the surface. _Kyrie eleyson. Lord have mercy._

Her head breached the surface and she scrambled to draw a breath she hadn't known she was missing. The water dripping from her hair into her eyes showed a blurred boat, not twenty feet in front of her, slowly making its way back to shore, leaving behind a piece of carry-on luggage as the only evidence it had ever been there.

_Bitch! She thinks she can fight back? She can NEVER fight back!_ Gwynne tread water for what seemed like hours, but she knew could not have been that long. What had happened? Where was her laptop? Why…why had God forsaken her? _Forget God! Start thinking more practically – what do you do now? GET US OUT OF THE WATER IT'S FREEZING!_ She hadn't noticed, but the water was stealing the heat from her body, and the stillness from her skin. The physicality of everything suddenly struck her. Her teeth were chattering, her legs were bruised and her arms were gelatin, her head throbbed from the blows, and her breathing was short and sporadic, competing with the water which now filled her lungs. It was time to do something.

Gwynne wasn't sure how, but somehow, she made it to the coast of Long Island. Digging her nails into the shore when she could reach the bottom of the water, she clawed her way onto land, legs whipping behind, tossed and turned by the rip tides. And finally, that moment came when her legs were out of the water – when not a bit of her body was submerged – when she was free. She forced herself onto her back and stared up at the empty heavens, devoid of clouds, moon, stars that were hidden by man's light. Just a blackness, mirroring the rolling water below – or was it the other way around? The thoughts cleared her head, slowed her breathing, and made her forget, at least for a moment, that she was an inch away from death.

Pushing her head further in the sand to look behind her, she could see a gas station hanging from that same empty sky. Nothing surrounded it, not even cars. Just an upside-down brightly-lit gas station, the last fueling stop around. Where travelers could stock up on supplies before taking that final step. _And booze, and porn, and cigarettes_. _Damn I could use a cigarette_.

The sand was a mess in her hair now, not to mention covering her soaked suit in tiny grains of beige. She didn't really care. She was alive. _And so am I_. And that, for just a moment, was enough. But really, it was time to get dry.

Gwynne flipped herself over on her stomach as the gas station righted itself to the ground, now enticing man to wreck himself at just another pit stop. Or at least, to let them change clothes – although she didn't have her luggage – and let loved ones know that they were alright – although she had no family left, and her laptop was gone as well. She pulled out the cell phone from her pocket. Wonder of wonders, it still flashed the time. It was 1:32 am. She had been in the water for hours.

It took her several tries to stand up on her legs. Eventually she settled for crawling on all fours to the road, then walking hunched over across the street to the station. She saw a sign for the ladies bathroom outside – she thanked God that it was separate from the store, that she wouldn't have to show herself soaked through and covered in sand. Pushing the door open and walking down to the last of three stalls on the right, she shut the door and spun around to the toilet. Too quickly. The world went dizzy, then it too became drenched in water, before it went black.

The red tile was cold against her cheek. The tile wasn't red. Everything was red. Nothing was red. Gwynne's eyes fluttered open, letting the blood in. She reached up for her head and felt a gash clear across her eyebrow. Slowly, she let her hand down, putting it on the bathroom tile and trying to lift herself. Blood came spilling out in waves, covering her face, and she immediately dropped herself. _Kyrie eleyson. Christe eleyson. Kyrie eleyson. Someone help me…_she couldn't work up the strength to weep.

Her shaking hand went to her pocket to pull out her cell phone. The light inside came on and announced the time. 4:18 am. She had been laying there for almost three hours. Her stomach wretched, and she started to dry heave. There was nothing left inside of her to come out. Her fingers went to the send button, dialing the last number she had called. "Help…me…" she whispered. The world went black again.

As soon as the stranger was gone, Leech picked up the phone and dialed.

"Master Magneto?

"Yes, Leech?"

"Strange mutant come here looking for Master Magneto. Leech send him away. To New York, just like Master Magneto said. Leech do good, right?"

"You did excellent, Leech."

"Master Magneto, can Leech ask why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does Master Magneto not want mutants to find him? Doesn't Master Magneto want mutants to join his side?"

"Leech, if I had the time to explain to you everything that is going on, I would. But right now, there is a war going on, and little time for discussion. You did right to call me. Continue to do so if more people ask for me."

"Ok!"

Magneto placed the phone back on the hook. There was a price to pay for protection these days, and if it meant sacrificing the weaker mutants to Graydon Creed's mad scheme, Magneto knew he would have his revenge on the human some day. A door opened behind, but Magneto didn't even glance up; there was only one other person in this hidden compound, tucked away under an Arizona mountain.

"What have you seen, Destiny?"

"Someone will soon discover that Magneto is dead."

Magneto's skin pulled away from his body, liquefying into a dust that collected at his feet. It revealed behind it blue skin, a white gown, and a belt of skulls. The mutant Mystique, shape-changer and fugitive.

"Who?" She demanded.

"I do not know. I only know that it happens somewhere in New York."

Mystique let her amusement show in her face. With others she rarely showed emotion, but Destiny she could trust. Destiny had been with her from the beginning. "My love," she turned to face the other woman, "we're miles away from New York. Nothing to worry about for now."

The phone rang again, and Mystique assumed Magneto's form before answering.

"What?" He demanded.

"Oh…I…I think I got the wrong numbah."

The man melted away into another woman, this time a blonde with a soft face and sun-dress.

"Rogue? Is that you?"

"Yea…momma? You sounded differen'."

"Sorry, hon. Must be a cold a-comin'. Whatcha need?"

"I'm goin' to New York. I…I wanted ta letcha know."

The woman's dress flickered back to the white before regaining its sunflowers. "You're what?"

"A…a friend jus' called. I don know where she is, momma, but she sounded in trouble. She's dyin, momma. I gotta help her."

"Rogue, stay put! It's too dangerous there, you know that!"

"Yea, but this city's 'bout to explode anyways! You don know – everyone is blamin' us, for the Sentinels, for everything! It was in the papers – they know I'm a mutan. It's only time that's keepin' me alive here."

Damn that son of hers. Graydon had _promised_ no harm would come to Rogue as long as she kept sending mutants to New York. It was time she went to stop what she had set in motion.

"I'll meetcha there, sweet. Keep a phone on ya'."

"I love you, momma."

"I love you too, Rogue." She placed the phone gently back down on the hook. Glancing back over at Destiny – a look of love and devotion, a look of wisdom, a look that was lost on the blind woman – she made a motion for the door.

Destiny grabbed her arm. "My love, don't! I…I just had another vision." Tears began to come down from her hollow eyes. "You…you will…die, in New York."

Mystique only nodded. "What other choice do I have?"

"Let me go. She's my daughter too."

"Destiny, I can't let you go alone. Besides, you know that your vision will come true eventually. They always do."

"But we can always fight fate. One more time. Promise me, Mystique, that you'll stay here?"

"Fine, go. Make sure my son doesn't get his hands on any more mutants. Recruit them to our side." Mystique's skin changed once again into the old man she had come to perfect. The master of magnetism, Magneto. "It is time to create a New Brotherhood."


	3. Chapter 2

There really wasn't too much to complain about – most of the mutants captured by the Sentinels were locked away in concentration camps. They were subjected to torture daily, either in manual labor or in something they called 'demoralization'. Nobody really knew what either was unless they were _in_ the camps. The mutants didn't have a lab, and any research materials ever requested. They didn't have their own quarters, decent food, the freedom to use their powers. And they certainly weren't able to contact the outside, to run hits while still locked in the most secure areas in New York. Sentinels didn't try to be accommodating to mutants that were expendable to them. But then again, Sinister wasn't expendable.

He had worked on numerous projects for the Sentinels – some made of Vibranium that absorbed all sound sent at them. Some made of plastic, of course. But these latest creations were what he was intended to make all along. Sinister was a geneticist, a life-giver. He would someday rule the world with his own breed of superior mutants. But for now, he bided his time, watching, waiting.

The thirty-eight X-Sentinels he had already created blurred the line as to what was alive, and what was not. The X-Sentinels, unlike their predecessors, _had their own DNA_. It was a remarkable day when Sinister was able to accomplish it – one that he stored away in the back of his brain should the time come that he needed to muster a robotic army. But that was it – they were still robots. They still took orders from head-Sentinel Master Mold, they still ran on battery, and they still lacked the emotion of a homo superior.

Of course, Sinister could not just create DNA. He had to borrow it from elsewhere. And of course, Master Mold had provided hundred of test subjects from the New York concentration camps alone for him to experiment on. He was using one such mutant's today.

He reached for a Petri dish labeled "X-GENE, TYRONE JOHNSON" and placed it under the microscope. A mutant, sure, but Tyrone's powers stemmed just as much from the mutant X-Gene as it did from drugs forced upon him and demons that had possessed him. The question for today was: would the process still work? Certainly the Sentinels had use for a breed that could teleport hundreds of them at a time.

The X-Sentinel process was delicate, and every day Sinister pushed the limits. He had been making them for almost two weeks, and while there was always something new, he was able to speed through the basic process like clockwork. Replicating the DNA strand mysteriously produced by Master Mold only a few months ago, splicing it down the center, keeping the adenine and the guanine, splicing a strand of mutant DNA, keeping the cytosine and thymine, eliminating the irregularities. There was a lot of tweaking, but he had become so proficient at them that the entire process – for the most part – was rote. But every mutant's DNA was different, _wildly_ different, and just because the DNAs were joined didn't mean that powers transferred. Sinister had learned where to look in the microscope. And more and more X-Sentinels were built.

"Cloak", as Tyrone was often called, was Master Mold's latest request. The second, Sinister believed to be the most dangerous. The first was Namor McKenzie, only the mutant's powers transferred with all of their limitations. X-Sentinels found their powers diminishing as they spent time out of the water. Some felt the impulse to return to the ocean. Sinister shook his head. But the second mutant, Everett Thomas – a mutant who had gone by the name "Synch" before being captured and killed by the sentinels – that would inevitably present a threat to Sinister and his partners. There were twelve of them, more than any other X-Sentinel made. And, much like Synch had before them, they could project an aura and 'borrow' any mutant's power across a football field.

Cloak was the 6th mutant Sinister had worked on – after Synch, who had presented the most problems in the DNA splicing process, came Ororo Munroe, Lucas Bishop, and a personal friend of Sinister's, Gorgeous George. Each one had presented unique difficulties – the prototype X-Sentinels based on the weather goddess Ororo's powers went out of control, causing a hurricane to hit New York City itself. When concussive blasts were fired upon the Bishop X-Sentinels, they absorbed the energy but lay crumbled on the ground, still damaged by the sheer force of the explosion. And with George, Sinister ended up having to design a new type of stretchable plastic. That one hurt the most, personally. George had been a good friend to Sinister through the years, serving as the third in command of his Nasty Boys. When the DNA had been delivered, Sinister felt a pang of despair, for a moment, that he would never escape the Baxter Building, never reunite with the Boys, would never see his life eternal with the Apocalypse at his side. But what else could he do besides press on?

He set the RNA halves to fuse, and went over to a chair. Recounting the mutants, Sinister noticed that Master Mold must have had a thing for people of color. He filed it away – _everything_ was filed away in his mind, because intelligence was the only way he could hope to leave the world's greatest fort. Sitting, he crossed his legs and waited. For the DNA to be completed. For his chance to escape. He had been waiting for almost a year.

"YOU ARE WANTED IN THE MASTER MOLD CHAMBER." Sinister was slipping. He had missed a robot, almost a full 10-stories tall and hardly trained in the art of stealth, walk into his lab. The ceilings were, of course, high to accommodate, but because Sinister so rarely looked up, it was only at times like these, when a Sentinel entered his room, that he realized just how tall the room was. A summons to the Master Mold chamber? Shivers ran down Sinister's back. The chamber always made him feel uncomfortable, because it was the hardest room to get into. Consequently, it was the hardest room to escape. He stood up, made a show of checking the belly-shaker that was processing the DNA even though he knew it would be another hour or so before it was ready, and finally turned to the Sentinel.

"Well then? Lead the way." Pretending to order his captors around gave him some modicum of security. He needed his wits about him. They were in short supply these days.

Sinister had never made the Fantastic Four his concern. They were superhuman, but hardly _mutants_. They weren't _born_ with their gifts. They genetic material would doubtless prove worthless. Now, locked away in their old Headquarters, Sinister was beginning to regret that decision. From his time spent inside, he only knew the places he was allowed to see. The elevators that the Sentinels had to hunch over to get inside, and that required a passcode transmitted by laser around waist high. For a normal human. The Sentinels had infrared eyes built into their feet now. As they approached the elevator, one opened and shot a beam out to allow the doors to slide apart and accommodate the 6 foot man and 100 foot robot.

Had he not become so accustomed to the rest of the building, he would have realized that the elevator was nothing short of impressive. The lift had been designed to haul space shuttle parts down to the assembly room – now it was the only way into the Master Mold chamber. The lowest floor of the building, and the only way inside was to go to the very top and take this one lift down. Sinister's fear was justified.

The elevator was essentially a large platform on two large metal gears. Sinister waited as they slowly rolled down the tracks, trying to decide what it was that the Master Mold wanted. He had only received the new DNA this morning – he certainly couldn't have expected the new X-Sentinels to be ready. Was he being released? Not likely – the Sentinels were programmed to kill every mutant once they had outlived their…oh no.

The lift doors opened to the Master Mold chamber. It was the entire height of the Baxter building, all 102 stories. Sitting, the Master Mold's head touched the ceiling. The Sentinel of all Sentinels, Master Mold was not just the one in charge, he was the one who single-handedly created each and every Sentinel. The process was self-contained, and while Sinister didn't know what happened inside, he seemed to always catch a glimpse of the departure dock when he entered. It was a platform as long as a Sentinel was tall that extended from the center of Master Mold's chest every time one was created. Lying down, lifeless, was a minion, a new creation. Sometimes they were made of steel, or plastic, or vibranium. Sometimes they had the DNA addition that Sinister had sent down to the chamber once it was finished. But it was always a Sentinel.

The Master Mold plucked the giant robot – so tiny compared to the large fingers holding it – and placed it in line with the other.

"YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS. APPREHEND SONGBIRD AND KLAW. IGNORE SOLARR." The hatch in the ceiling opened – the spacecraft launching bay, the Sentinel departure spot – and 30 Sentinels flew through with purpose.

"ESSEX."

Master Mold knew how to hit Sinister's buttons – using a name which he hadn't gone by in years. He stood, hands folded across his chest, glaring up at the monster. He couldn't see the face, but he could pretend. Like the other Sentinels, Master Mold didn't understand when the _living_ were being rude. Wits. Wits.

"What?"

"I HAVE DECIDED TO ACTIVATE THE X-SENTINELS SYNCH. THERE ARE CURRENTLY FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY OF THEM."

_Four hundred and twenty? _The last time Sinister had counted there were 12! How had Master Mold built so many. So many that would…

"YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED. SENTINELS HAVE ALREADY SEIZED THE BLUEPRINTS AND INITIAL DESIGNS OF THE X-SENTINELS. THEY WILL BE IMPRINTED INTO MY BEING. THE TIME OF YOUR EXTERMINATION HAS COME."

Sinister had no time to notice the over four hundred X-Sentinels flying out of the Baxter building. He had to think. He had to escape the impenetrable fortress. Wits.

He made a bee-line for the lift and jammed the button closed. Luckily, the lift was still there – if he had had to call it, he would've needed the laser passcode. The gears slowly crawled up the walls, lifting a hand at a time, pulling Sinister up away from freedom, the only way to go. There was a bumping below him – the Sentinels were flying up to meet him. The platform shook, throwing Sinister against a wall. He really only had one option.

Pushing back his sleeves, he pointed his clenched fists towards the noise from below. He hadn't been 'allowed' to exercise his mutant power inside, but they hadn't collared him for fear it would limit his intelligence. So he was out of practice – that didn't mean he was ignorant. The red diamond inlaid between his eyebrows began to glow fiercely, and just as suddenly large red energy sprung from his hands in the direction he pointed it. The jolt was familiar, welcome, nurturing, warming and chilling at the same time, but perhaps, most importantly, it made contact. He couldn't _feel_ the beams leaving his hands hitting a Sentinel, but he could hear the clunk at the bottom of the shaft. And the silence that followed. Sinister peered down the hole he had created – no more Sentinels. Good. Now.

He was playing a waiting game now. The gears churned, like two caterpillars that eventually wanted to be at the top, but were really in no hurry to get there. _Caterpillars? Am I losing my mind?_ The Fantastic Four, in all of their technical genius, couldn't have been bothered to install an indicator in the elevator, and Sinister had lost count. There were no dings either – just small beams of light coming from the hallways, peering through a small crack in the elevator door, feeling its way underneath like a mist, and then just as suddenly gone. Black, darkness, and then another light to try for a moment._ How much longer?_

As soon as he had that thought, the door opened. Floor 102. Now to descend and get the hell out of here.

The Baxter Building was designed for security. Not only was the now-Master Mold Chamber an impenetrable tower that could only be accessed by reaching the 102nd floor, to reach that floor was no easy feat. Without the laser code to activate the main building elevators, he would have to take the stairs. And of course, the flight of stairs from the 102nd to the 101st floor was on one side of the building. Those below were on the other side. No easy feat at all.

He was on floor 92 when the ceiling caved in. Sinister dove for a desk – for some reason, the floors had become human offices, although who could ever work here was beyond him – and crouched underneath, waiting out the rubble that crushed down from above with intent. Dry wall and dust covered his eyes, blinding him temporarily to the utter destruction raging like a tempest...

So. They had not sent Sentinels. As a hole opened up in the ceiling, the smaller X-Sentinel hovered slowly down to the ground. Sinister had found that in order to mimic the mutant Storm's powers, he had to incorporate her gestures. The X-Sentinels had been made more compact, just slightly larger than an average human, to accommodate for the weather witch's grandiose melodrama. Only now it wasn't melodramatic. Now it was real.

The X-Sentinel raised an arm and pointed an empty palm towards Sinister. It started as a light breeze, ruffling the papers on the desk above, pushing the pens off the desk, kicking up the hardly-settled debris into Sinister's face. As though the X-Sentinel was just realizing that his summer draft wasn't working, Sinister was thrown against the inside back of the desk by a hurricane. He was still moving though, everything was moving, his eyelids to shield himself from the gale, his hands to the sides of the desk, bracing himself for the impact against the far wall, his cheeks trying to find safe haven in his ears, his legs trying to find a foothold amongst the overturned computers and half-assed memos. Finally his left foot caught on something – a wire? A telephone cord? – and Sinister immediately let go of the desk, using all of the strength he could muster to hang on to that cord. Clawing at the ground, he swung an arm up to meet his foot while raising the other one. The familiar warmth came back, sending shivers down his spine. It was delicious and nauseating, but he held on until the wind stopped. His eyes jolted open – _cowards are those who raise one and the other_ – and as soon as he confirmed the X-Sentinel was down, made his way to the exit door. Flinging it open, he put a leg inside before it slammed shut, clamping down and threatening to rip him from his limb. Sinister whipped his head around to see three more X-Sentinels. _Shit_.

Fists held high, the red searing from his hands knocked the first one square in the chest. He turned to aim for the second as it send a bolt of lightning at the door trapping Sinister. The metal door. The shock sent him to the ground, arms flinging wildly, shooting at anything they could hit. More ceiling crumbled on top of him, pinning him to the ground, not particularly heavy, but without the leverage of his leg, effective. He looked up and shot a beam from the diamond in his forehead, vaporizing the plaster, and reached a hand for the door.

Another bolt surged through the door, but this time Sinister was ready. He embraced it as he did his power and grinned through the pain, delighting in it. All he needed was his fucking leg. The door pulled open just enough for his leg to slink out before slamming shut again. But it was all he needed. He molded the leg back into place – long ago, when Apocalypse gave him the ability to control every molecule of his body, Sinister had become entirely unforgiving of flaws in his outward appearance – and swung it over to lift himself up. As he did, the room began to fill with water. Somehow, a storm cloud had appeared in the gaping hole above.

The two X-Sentinels hovered just over the water line. _Why didn't I ask Apocalypse for the ability to fly?_ It was already shin high, and rising faster than Sinister could think. He tried the door again, but it was useless. One of them was still maintaining a strong wind on it. He pushed the hair out of his face and searched for the X-Sentinels through the storm. The rain kept his eyes at a squint, and every two seconds he was reaching up to brush away his soaked hair. _This is pointless! I can't see a fucking thing!_ The water was almost waist high, filling his pants and slowing him down. His running became a walk became trudging through floating classified briefs, pencils, and ink cartridges. Pushing his fists into the water, he let out an explosion and the ground sunk. Another blast and the floodgates were opened. Sinister realized too late that he was going to be sucked in – the funnel was growing larger, pulling him under. If he fell into the whirlpool, he would drop the whole height of the floor below. He might not die, but he'd surely drown.

Sinister picked up his pants from the water and tried to run fighting against the watertornado. The rain wasn't stopping either. Somehow he managed to find a column and hold on against the water. It was draining faster than it was pouring, but the weight was bending the floor. It wasn't going to last long enough for Sinister to make it to the door. He reached one arm up, his knuckles white from gripping the column, and searched for the X-Sentinels. There was one standing right by the stairway door. One shot took it down and went straight through the door. He took a step, then another, then let go of the column to make a dash through the now knee-high water. As soon as his hands left the plaster surface, the floor beneath him buckled under and dropped him. He was falling for almost a full second before he realized he was no longer standing on solid ground.

Bracing for the impact, Sinister concentrated on his body, on his skin, on important things like his heart and brain, his lungs, things he couldn't do without, things he would need to get down 91 more flights of stairs, and rearranged their makeup, their molecules. Taking a last breath, he transformed his lungs into a liquid state, the bones of his body into a gaseous form that he could reassemble later, his skin suddenly becoming a container of building bricks. As he breached the water, which below had now covered the desks, the doors, the computers and paperclips, he stopped his heart and flattened it like a coin.

He had been coming down so fast, so far, that the water barely slowed him down. Hitting the floor with his hip, Sinister's head was soon to follow. The world phased in and out, he was gasping for air that wasn't around, had to keep thinking, his brain, had to give it enough, no where to breathe. Form one arm, another, move, another, another, he was at the surface, his head was almost at what remained of the ceiling, _turn your heart back on!_ Sinister reshaped his heart, ready to jump start it, too late, the world went dizzy then black._ Come on. Come on. Come on._

Beat.

Can't breathe. Need lungs. _Come on. Come on._

Beat.

Sinister hoisted himself to the surface, his head bobbing up through the room above. He hoisted himself up on the side of the room which hadn't caved in yet, dry land, _lungs!_ _Right!_ He reformed the lungs and took in a gasp of breath. The rest of his body came to him in seconds. He took account of his surroundings. The entire floor was gone, with just portions remaining from pillars below and on the edge of the walls. On the far wall through the rain and wind, he could see it – a door blasted through with stairs behind it that led to the ocean below. That meant that right below him...

The second X-Sentinel lowered itself back onto the 92nd floor, back to Sinister, no doubt scanning for any remains of life. He wouldn't give it the opportunity. Fists outreached, he unleashed two blasts into the metal armor striking the wall behind him. The Sentinel dropped into the water below, and just as suddenly the storm cloud above disappeared. Sinister leaned his back against the wall and breathed for what felt like the first time. A rumbling from behind startled him. They were coming, and the exit lay across a makeshift lake and under it.

A giant fist punched through the wall behind, and Sinister threw himself into the water. Just slight manipulation, making his lungs a little larger, making his body a little denser, and he sunk to the bottom. Just a few steps and he was able to reach the door. Of course it was jammed – he raised a finger and shot the lock off. He wrenched the door open and water came crashing through the stairs, trickling down, racing Sinister as he tried to make it to the 90th floor before too much water had covered it. He was halfway across, past tabletops and computers that seemed remarkably out of place in their neatness and order, when the wave crashed against him. Swimming through the familiar water in new territory, Sinister reached the stairway door. He plied it open and began the familiar race again.

As he exited the stairway, he turned around to see the water following him. Before his eyes, the ceiling came down once more as an X-Sentinel stretched down and blocked the surge. A Gorgeous George X-Sentinel, one that could manipulate it's body like plastic wrap. Why was he saving Sinister?

Three more Sentinels descended – no, probably X-Sentinels given what they had been sending at him so far. The only question was – were they Synch or Bishop? _Only one way to find out._ Sinister let out a powerful blast in their direction, not caring if it hit or not. The X-Sentinels stood there as the energy hit their armored chests, flowing into their circuits. That settled it – Bishop X-Sentinels. Sinister rolled behind a desk as the X-Sentinels released all of the energy that they had absorbed as concussive blasts. The desk flew backwards, pushing Sinister up against a wall. Wriggling a hand free, he grabbed a side of the desk and threw it aside. He was too smart to stand – he dove behind another, rolling himself closer to the door. Another ball of energy exploded around him, the flash blinding his eyes for a quick second. But Sinister had plans for this desk.

He jammed his shoulder inside and slammed his body against it, sending it skidding across the ground towards the X-Sentinels. It wouldn't do much, but it would be a distraction. Sinister leapt to his feet and head for the door as the robots punched through the wooden decoy. A third blast, but they were too late – the stairway door was already closing behind Sinister.

Floor 88. He was making progress. The explosion above alerted Sinister to the ceiling – _these prics really don't give up, do they_? – just as a hole was punched through. The three X-Sentinels from above showed their feet as they slowly began lowering themselves down. Wits. _Blind them? No, they can scan for mutant DNA. Shoot them? They absorb my energy. Then what?_ Sinister looked back up at the hole in the ceiling, the X-Sentinels had almost cleared. Behind them was…

He raised a fist up above and shot. Straight through the X-Sentinel holding back the water from above. He had almost forgotten about that part. He had built the X-Sentinels, he knew they could mend themselves, but not before the damn had burst. A tidal wave of brown and murky water came crashing down on the heads of his three pursuers and immediately began filling the room. Some of it was gone – somewhere, Sinister didn't question his luck sometimes – but it was shallow enough to wade in. And so wade he did, still damp from his last encounter with this shit, towards the other end of the floor. This wasn't the end, and he knew it. Breath came streaming from his mouth in wisps – was it getting cold?

Sinister looked down to see the water around him freezing. Before he could do anything, his legs were stuck in ice, near the head of another X-Sentinel that had been partly submerged. He whisked his head around to see yet another walk through the door he had just come through. They were getting arrogant, if they were capable of emotion.

Three pulses of energy – two from his fists, to clear the ice around him, one from the diamond in his head towards the oncoming X-Sentinel – surged through his body. The first two made contact; the X-Sentinel sidestepped and continued its approach. Sinister stepped up on the ice and took a few steps backwards, trying to lead his aim on the mechanical beast he had created. Of course he lost his balance, of course he slipped and fell. _Didn't I see it coming_? The X-Sentinel saw the window open and pounced, crouched over Sinister and raising a metal elbow.

A short, point blank shot flew through his forehead, knocking the X-Sentinel back before it could strike flesh. There was the sound of circuits snapping, electricity being spun out of control, before it hit the frozen ground and slid backwards. Sinister grappled with the ice, trying to regain a balance that he never had, reaching his hands behind him to lift himself up without taking an eye off the robot. Somehow, he was the faster of the two, standing up as his back cracked and groaned under the pressure he was putting it under, and pointing his fists towards the floor. He looked down and ran, shooting the plasmic energy as a road of tile emerged in front of him from beneath the ice. A drop fell on his head. _Rain again? This is getting old_. He looked up to see the X-Sentinel which had been holding back the water, now perched on the ceiling looking down, dripping water from his thin plastic body.

Sinister barely had a chance to lower his head and cover it with his hands before this second pursuer was down on him, wrapping him in a tight cocoon with its body, spinning around and around, a whirl that happened in an instant and stretched to infinity. He fell to the ground, lightly bouncing on the ice to his side, and shot out a beam through his fists, now bound to his side. They flew through the room, hitting the wall opposite, barely skimming his captor. Sinister raised his head and could see, through the translucent binding, a large figure approaching. The room suddenly got very hot.

It was a mater of seconds before he felt the ice melt beneath him. Sinister's sweat mixed with the water still inside the cocoon, trying to escape, trying to evaporate. Less than an hour ago, Sinister had been drowned in water. Now he wanted nothing more than a glass of it. He threw his body around, trying to face away from the X-Sentinel that was standing above him, trying to out maneuver the body that was wrapped around him. He was exerting himself too much. He was losing his breath. He was losing the fight.

One last gulp of the arid air that wheezed into the shell, and Sinister shot whatever power he had left through his fists behind him. It knocked the X-Sentinel back, but the temperature kept rising. Plastic from inside started to ooze off, dripping onto Sinister's skin and burning him before latching themselves on. His arms jolted up in surprise, using up too much energy. He had to get out of the room.

He oriented himself to where he had fallen, where he had turned, and started to roll. Suddenly he hit wall, and tried to make out where he was in the room. The door. The stairs beyond. A red bolt of energy and the bottom half of the door was gone, large enough for him to roll. He started flying down the stairs, his head jerking and hitting the onground. The ringing in his ears started to take over his sense of direction, but it was getting cooler. Finally, the falling stopped. Floor 87.

The wrapping around his body suddenly constricted, squeezing what little life was left out of him. Just…keep…rolling…Sinister stopped, unable to muster up what energy he needed to move on. _I can't do this for 87 more floors!_ Wits. Wits. There had to be another way.

As the air left his lungs, this time not replaced by whatever was filtering inside, Sinister pushed the log he had become to his own feet. Staring down at the ground, he felt the energy build up inside of him. This was the only way he could ever hope to make it out alive. Three shots – left fist, right fist, forehead – simultaneous, beautiful, full, now chill to the touch against his burnt skin. The ground beneath him shook, but he did not give up.

Sinister finally felt the fall, and was almost so startled as to stop. The beams of energy surging through his body, out of limbs, out of pores to escapes from, relentlessly ravaged the ground. Floor 86. He kept going. Floor 85. Floor 84. Floor 83...There was no stopping, there was only falling.

His eyes fluttered open to a ceiling drowned in the blood of his eyes. Sinister could feel the bones of his body fractured, broken, snapped like twigs, the open gouge beneath his ribs on the left side of his stomach, the blood oozing out and trickling down to the floor, the piece of glass stuck in his right temple, just above the eye. But he was alive. And there was no sign of any Sentinels – X or otherwise. Closing his eyes once more, Sinister concentrated on his body and forced it to heal itself. Skin mended itself closed, the glass left his eye with a pop, bones fused themselves together. He rolled his head to the left and saw an illuminated sign hanging above a door. The best four letter word he could hope for.

Sunlight came streaming through the panes on the door from outside, as though Sinister had somehow made it to an afterlife and was going to be greeted by angels. This is how they treated the immortal like him. But if he was immortal, he wasn't really dead. The sunlight became more real, and perhaps more welcoming. Slowly lifting his body from the ground and dusting off the soot he had accumulated in his 86-floor drop, Sinister sauntered out the door as though he was the only one with permission to be there.

It was a weird feeling, being part of a city-street scene again. He had been locked away for so long, he had almost started to forget that there were other people, that those people were living normal lives, that so many of them had taken the Sentinel take over of New York City in stride. This Westchester Avenue was the home of the ignorant and the foolish. He just had one more errand to run before leaving to join his team – those who gave a far greater damn about the future.

Sinister thought about calling a taxi before he remembered that he didn't have any money, and his clothes were a mess. Alright, if he had to pass for a homeless piece of shit, then he would pass as a homeless piece of shit. His body could take it – Sinister couldn't remember the last time he tired himself out by _walking_. First to 3rd avenue, across the bridge, down on Park, and finally a left on 120th East. It was there that Sinister found what he was looking for – a manhole, leading down into the sewers of New York City.

Kicking open the cover and holding his breath, he slinked down the ladder to admire his handwork. He didn't need to see bodies – the smell of rotting flesh carried to his nose told him the job was done. His feet touched the stone below, and Sinister began walking through the dark tunnels, accompanied only by the glow of his forehead lighting the path and the click of his shoes on the floor. He turned a corner and saw a sudden flash of red floating in the waters, then a blue, then a green. He didn't have time for paint-by-numbers, there was more work to be done.

The smell led him away from the floating colors and down a darker, narrower tunnel. There was no light at the end of it, only death. He reached the next tunnel which intersected at a T, and there he saw his handiwork. Thousands of dead bodies piled on top of each other, flesh torn off their bones, burned away, eaten by the millions of swarming flies, rotting into the sewage and giving it their own tint. Their genetic defections had tainted the mutant pool for the last time, each one dead by Sinister's order.

The Morlocks had lived down in these tunnels for almost twenty five years now, outcasts shunned by the world above for their malformed figures and social ineptitudes. They were mutants, sure, but they were a step backward in evolution – Sinister stepped over a body that looked like half of a duck screwed onto human legs – they were, for lack of a better word, disgusting. Once the world was reshaped in the image of Apocalypse there would be no place for them. So Sinister had had them killed to save the trouble later.

He wouldn't even be mudding through the dead were it not for his hunt for one Morlock in particular. She had been their unofficial leader, rallying an army of the disfigured, of the weak, and hording them down here so that they bred, they spawned, they spread. And the bitch could do it just as easily anywhere else. _She_ had to be stopped more than anyone.

Sinister saw a face almost entirely ripped off by claws. He could almost see how it happened…

_…Sabertooth was aroused by the fight with Feral, there was some animal instinct buried and exhumed over and over by Weapon X that was strangely attracted to this cat woman. His force, her speed – they could've been something fierce if he hadn't been sent to kill her. She lept up to the ceiling, hanging on to a support beam that ran across, arching her back and presenting herself. He lunged upwards, swinging his claws at her, to kill her, to make her live like she had never lived before. She scurried across and jumped down, legs outstretched to kick his back, sending him down from his leap face first into the sewage. Sabertooth stood up and turned to face the new love of his life. His heart threatened to leave his chest. Feral hissed, a warning, and was off the ground, clawed hands outstretched for his throat. He countered, scratching across her chest and throwing her backwards. It was a dance, and now for the dip. He dropped down to hover over her moaning body and licked the blood from her chest. Her eyes grew, horrified, and Sinister filled with the sweet agony of their erotic play. She kicked up a leg to push him off, but she wasn't strong enough to do any damage. She was weak. She was vulnerable. She was delicious. Smoldering panic in her eyes, she turned to run as Sabertooth reached out and grabbed her tail, pulling her backwards, tugging faster and faster, pulling her in close. A furry arm reached around her, shoving Feral into his chest as he lowered his head down into her ear. The long cat tongue left his mouth and found a home in her ear as she kicked, screamed, cried. It was meant to be. He had one arm around her waist, the other cradling her head, ready to snap it. His left hand reached lower down her waist as the screaming grew louder. Then, just as he reached down into her pants, his right hand jerked, ripping the furry flesh off of her skin. She fell in a heap at his feet as he rubbed the skin into his face, breathing in the stink, the fear, the death…_

…Sinister kicked the body over quickly before he vomited, queasy at the sight of her head. Just one fucking girl to find and then he could be out of here.

He had begun assembling the Marauders before he was caught by the Sentinels. The Nasty Boys had their purposes, but they were all known to Apocalypse. There were some things that needed to pass unnoticed. Some were easy finds – Sabertooth had been a mercenary two-bit thug for years, and it was just a matter of tracking him down and price negotiating before he had a team leader. He had known Vertigo from his work in the Savage Land, who had introduced him to the Vietnam War veteran named Arclight. The two were a sexy, no, stunning pair of mutants, either would be fit to rule at his side as queen. But then, there was always the issue of Apocalypse.

Others had joined – Blockbuster, he had found in a bar drinking himself stupid after his wife of four years had walked out; Prism had been running two-bit bank robberies in St. Louis – and still others had been coerced. But his Marauders, while they could face setbacks, could never be defeated.

Amongst the decaying bodies Sinister spotted one that he recognized. He couldn't feel sympathy for Blockbuster, minions were just that, and without pawns to sacrifice to your cause the world would not revolve. Besides, for all of his super strength, Blockbuster was weak – as evidenced by the gun still clutched in his hand, still pointed at his temple. Brute force did nothing when the enemy controlled the mental field…

_…The brick wall seemed to shift, and from it emerged something from an episode of "I Love the 1960s". Swirls of pinks and blues and whites and greens and oranges, dizzying to Blockbuster, how had she managed to stay hidden in the walls? The one color missing was brick red. A tam covered her face, pulled down over her eyes, she was staring at the ground, what was she looking at? No, she was tracking him. His reflection was in the puddle of water at her feet. She could see his eyes, and, shrouded in the darkness floating above the noxious sea of brightness. One hand was rested on her hip, casual, the other held a cigarette holder. Blockbuster recognized it from the briefing boss gave him on the mission; this woman was known as the Beautiful Dreamer._

_Her hips swayed as she approached him, but he didn't give her time to get close. Jutting an elbow out and bracing his arm with the other, he charged towards her. He was entirely unaware of the other Morlocks being dispatched by his allies. Or the ones that weren't. Masque saw his friend just behind Blockbuster and widened his eyes. Calisto had left the Morlocks to his care, and he was losing her closest friends. Running his right hand down his left arm, he reshaped the flesh into a long tentacle. It wobbled uncontrollably at first, tingling from the rapid change, but Masque didn't have a lot of time. He reached out and wrapped around Blockbuster almost as his elbow made contact with flesh, reeling him backwards as he tumbled into the water behind him. Gaining a little more control, Masque lifted him up to his feet, then a little higher, hovering him over the ground. _

_The Beautiful Dreamer sauntered her way up to her would-be killer and pulled the cigarette holder out of her mouth. Blockbuster knew he was dead. It was the last thought of his own. She raised her head, the tam still hiding her eyes in shadow, revealing full red lips. They puckered and blew a puff of smoke into his face. The tentacle around him squeezed, and Blockbuster gasped for air. _

_The smoke entered through his mouth as he opened it, choking on it, rejecting it, having no other option but to taste it. Some filtered its way into the blood steam immediately, the rest sped towards his trachea, splitting at the bronchi, swirling in the lungs, a new home. Clawing, panting at the walls, it was accepted, welcomed, pouring into the bloodstream. And with that smoke, memories of the Beautiful Dreamer's choice spun up into Blockbuster's coronary plexuses, pulsing, driving into the cervical plexus, passing, following, leading, until it was burrowing into his brain. His memories now. His thoughts. _

_She reached her hand behind to the back of her pants where she kept a spare Derringer in the waistband of her pants and placed it in Blockbuster's open palm. Individually, she closed each finger around the gun and nodded to Masque. The tentacle retracted and Blockbuster fell back to the ground. There was only one thing to do…_

…but of course, if Blockbuster had known how to use his strength effectively, he would have never fallen for such a stupid trap. _Why are the strongmen always _stupid? Sinister observed the number of Morlocks trapped under rocks and debris, or with heads literally pushed down into their bodies, like little whack-a-moles, and realized that Blockbuster had done what he was supposed to. Missed, sure. But irreplaceable? Hardly.

The Alley, as it had been known, stretched on for miles beneath Manhattan, but it wasn't until Sinister had been in the tunnels for at least 15 minutes before he saw the calling card of his personal pick for the Marauders. No pun intended, of course.

Gambit had come to him panic stricken. The former X-Men had lost control of his power, charging everything he touched without mercy, unable to open doors, eat food, flip a light switch without the room bursting into a pyrotechnic show. Sinister had some experience in dealing with mutants who couldn't control their powers, but usually the solution was always a neural inhibitor that prevented any use of the power at all. But when Gambit had originally approached Sinister behind the backs of his fellow X-freaks, he had made the request to simply restore his powers back to normal. Gambit would be able to charge objects he touched, turning its potential energy into kinetic energy. And more importantly, he'd be able to _not_ charge them.

He had lived with such ability for years, but for Sinister it was a high order. The bargain had been made, and Sinister had gone to the one facility in the world that had the technology necessary to develop such a remedy – the old Weapon X facility of Alberta, Canada. Development had been slow, but he was eager to sign Gambit on to the Marauders, and the impetus for creation led to creation itself. As Gambit lay on the operating table under the bright light hanging above, the right half of his chest opened up without anesthetic, slowly being sewn up after the implant had been placed to give him back his previous mastery, the lab shook. Sinister had outrun fate for too long, it was starting to catch up. He hadn't known what had happened to Gambit, whether he had lived or been killed by the Sentinels, the same ones that had taken Sinister to the Baxter Building and put him to work. And now, the Ace of Spades lying across a dead old grandmother's apron. Gambit was alive…

…_Annalee snuck out of the shadows behind two figures, one made of crystal, and one she recognized from the X-Men. The X-Men could NEVER be trusted, Calisto had been a fool to bow to them, to let the weather-witch Storm run the Morlocks. There plan had been to invade all along._

_Her friends were dropping like the flies that had already come to feast on their carcasses. There were only a few of the Morlocks left, but she could sense a desperation in Gambit. It was a desperation she could play off of._

_The crystal one spoke first, both unaware of Annalee's existence. "D'ya think it's right, goin' through with this without the boss even around t'enjoy it? I mean, now that ol' Sin'ster is locked up, can't we jus' high-tail and head for the mountains."_

_"Shut up, Prism. We got job to do, no? Gambit not a lot of things, but he a man of his word." She never understood why Gambit always talked in the third person. "Find de rest of dem, make sure Calisto's dead, then we leave." So, they were after Calisto._

_Annalee delved into Gambit's mind, drawing out that bit of eagerness, willingness, fear, rolled tightly together like a cornered cat wrapped in his own tail, bringing it to the forefront. Just a little bit more, and…_

_There was the sound of metal sliding against metal as a staff appeared from nowhere in Gambit's hands, thrusting around, his feet pivoting on pavestone, trenchcoat flaring out behind him, rotating, tracing out a circumference around his focal point, shaft striking crystal, splitting crystal, Gambit's snarl slowly fading into shock, frowning eyes widening as he jammed his staff further, deeper into the chest of his partner, through the other side, until he realized what he had done. Too late. The staff ripped out of Prism as he fell face forward into a pile of corpses, Annalee's friends, her adopted family, her children, all of them her children. She looked up to see a glowing pink object spinning towards her, and a dangerous look from Gambit's eyes…_

…but where had he gone?

The trail of bodies thinned and ended, with no sign of Calisto anywhere. The bitch had managed to escape! Sinister hoisted himself up a ladder and pushed the manhole cover off, unsure of exactly where in New York City he was going to emerge. He didn't have a chance to get out – a patrolling Sentinel flew directly overhead, and Sinsiter ducked back into the sewers. Fine. If they were the safest way to go, then he would stick to the sewers.

He had made up his mind to leave New York. Wherever she was, Calisto had undoubtedly made the same decision, and Sinister would have to track her down later. She wouldn't have the chance to amass such an army next time, and she wouldn't have her patron saint and protector, Ms. Ororo Munroe, to look after her either. The missions was successful on many points, and for that Sinister was pleased. Now he needed to make it back to Cairo. But first, he needed to make it to an airport without Sentinels.

Sinister had heard of these people leaving Long Island in boats – Coyotes, they were called, a fitting name for those illegally trafficking unwanted people back and forth – that dropped mutants off somewhere in New Jersey. Unless the Sentinels had brought his personal jet from Canada and kept it in JFK airport, those Coyotes seemed his best bet at a quick exit. He didn't have money on him, but somehow he doubted that his driver would live to see the other side.

The sewer tunnels serving New York City were as long as they were revolting. Fortunately, they ran underneath the streets almost perfectly, and even had street signs occasionally to tell travelers where they were going. Where there had been none for a while, the Morlocks had kindly graffitied the walls with directions.

One sign that Sinister _hadn't_ noticed was help from the X-Men. That meant one of two things; either they didn't know, unlikely as Calisto would've probably called for help; or they had all been captured by the Sentinels, making Sinister's job that much easier. So what had befallen the X-Mansion, with all of it's goodies? And Xavier? One year without ears in the outside world and he felt like he was starting life all over again.

A fork with black-spray painted signs approached. To the left was JFK airport. To the right was Long Island. He was almost there.

"Naze, Alchem. You'll want to see this." Beast had just come around the corner, and didn't wait for his friends to acknowledge him, he just turned and walked the way he had come from.

"What is it, Hank?" Gordon – although he wanted to be called Alchem, and Hank couldn't blame him with a name like Gordon – was still new at this; he asked questions with a hint of arrogance and suspicion that Forge – no, now his name was 'Naze' – had learned was inappropriate at a time like this. Naze knew that when the Beast said it was important, it was important.

"We had a visitor just a moment ago. I tracked him as far as La Guardia, yet he did not sense me. He must be losing his touch."

"You know him?"

Hank nodded. "His name is Nathaniel Essex, but to most he is simply 'Sinister'. You'll understand the _nom de plume_ when you see what he led me to."

Almost as soon as he had finished his sentence, the three of them stood amongst a sea of bodies. Gordon ran back from where they had come, and Hank could hear the sound of vomiting behind. Still very new indeed.

"Are these the Morlocks that I've heard about?" Naze stepped forward and surveyed the carnage like a plot of land. He had to. So did Hank. If they saw the bodies for what they were, both would be joining their comrade.

"Yes, I recognize a few of the faces. It appears we have not been alone down here for quite some time. I didn't realize that the Morlocks were still an operating underground resistance movement."

"We could've stopped this."

"We could have? Look how many are dead – what good would three more mutants have done?" Hank turned back to the bodies. "But this isn't what I brought you to see. Come."

The two trudged through the thousands of terrified expressions and broken limbs. Suddenly, Hank stopped and bent down.

"This," he stood back up, holding in his furry blue fingers a Jack of Diamonds playing card. "This is what I wanted you to see."

Alchem walked back in, one hand covering is hand and nose, eyes squinted in disgust. He motioned at Hank with his head. "It's a jack," his voice was muffled by his makeshift gasmask.

"It's Gambit."

"Who?" Which sounded more like "Hurrrrr?"

"An old friend of Hank's" Naze spoke up for the first time since seeing the card.

"He was an X-Man. He either tried in vain to help these poor souls," Hank turned his head to take in the hundreds of bodies lying in just that tunnel, "or he had a hand in it."

"Wherr ded mff haffer?"

"What?"

Alchem removed the hand from around his mouth and gasped for air, his face betraying the fact that he had immediately regretted the decision. "When did this happen?"

"It's impossible to say. It must have been before our arrival, though. One would hope that between the three of us, we could have heard it."

"Why?" Naze's eyes were still fixed on the playing card.

"Our's is not to question why…" Hank's voice trailed off. "Come on, then. We have a way to enter the Xavier mansion. It's a long walk upstate. I suggest we make trails." He dropped the card back on the body and leapt up into the air, his hands grabbing a pipe that ran along the ceiling. One hand over the other, he led the way through the sewers, just as before, never looking back.

Roxbury Avenue. What Sinister remembered of his New York City geography, he had traveled under the Raritan bay through the sewers and arrived at Long Island, where the Coyotes were setting sail for New Jersey. For the rest of his life. He climbed up a ladder and pushed off the manhole, temporarily blinded by the setting sun outside. He became acutely aware of his aching muscles – it had been a very long day indeed.

Standing on Roxbury, Sinister stretched his arms up into the sky. His clothes were disgusting, reeked of sewage and dead bodies, of the blood and sweat of a year spend working for the enemy. They needed to be changed before he could ever hope to catch someone who didn't want to draw attention. The sun was still up – the coyotes wouldn't be out yet. He had a bit of time.

The street was populated with mostly churches, but Sinister soon found a Neiman Marcus – not his style, but an Armani suit was more appropriate than a shit-stenched cape. He swung open the door and almost immediately was greeted by a bitch in a black jacket and a short yellow skirt. She was wearing a nametag – "Rita."

"I'm sorry sir, I think you're in the wrong place, let me show you out." She hovered an arm around him, clearly trying to keep her distance, and her nosed wrinkled up as she caught his scent. She didn't get too far. Sinister dug into his pocket and flashed his identification card.

"Name is Nathaniel Essex. I'm here on behalf of our friends in the sky."

Rita's eyes widened at seeing the card. She snatched it from his grubby hands and scanned her eyes across. "S.H.I.E.L.D. IDENTIFICATION." A grin almost as white as his skin stretched across his face, putting on display is razor pointed alligator teeth.

"But you're…you're a…"

He grabbed the card back from her as he walked towards the men's section. "How very observant," he smirked, without turning back.

Sinister grabbed a suit with his size – any suit, it didn't matter, just something else to get into – and a pair of black patent leather shoes before heading into the dressing room. He saw himself for the first time that day – an absolute mess. Inevitably, it would take more that a black double-breasted power suit to clean him up. But it worked for now. He slipped the ID card from his old pocket into his new before leaving the dirtied cape and black armor behind in the dressing room – never know when it could come in handy. When he had pocketed it back at the Baxter Building, he wasn't planning on using it at a Neiman Marcus, so careful planning had already paid off. That's why he was the mastermind, and the Nasty Boys were, well, the Nasty Boys.

He walked out, giving a slight nod to Rita who still stood in her black and yellow paralyzed state, probably afraid that he was going to turn her in to the Sentinels. Sinister was just surprised that a mutant was working at a high-end retail store right under the government's nose in New York City.

The sun was just above the horizon now. Time for Sinister to make his exit. He followed the road all the way down to the coast and scanned for boats. No luck, but the sun had just set – they would probably be waiting for a few hours. He walked into a gas station across the street and picked up a newspaper, reading the headlines. It was good to get acquainted with the world. So, the Sentinels had taken over most of North America – he could've guessed by their occupation of Canada. The next campaign seemed to be Central and South America before hitting Europe. The E.U. had issued a threat; if Sentinels began to cross the Atlantic, nuclear war was immanent. There was a bill being debated in the Senate as to whether the Office of the President should be shut down, and the country run simply by Mastermold – and, by extension, S.H.I.E.L.D. – and the rest of the Sentinels. Hysteria about the Sentinels had reached levels that almost matched hysteria over the mutants. But what most people thought was just a change in name, Sinister saw through as a dangerous change in power. The average Joe believed that S.H.I.E.L.D. was another CIA, another intelligence agency that spawned from the others. But it was actually created by Congress to oversee the Sentinels, staffed by their own pawns. And the organization had lost control years ago. That of course did not make the headlines. If the public knew that the Sentinels were acting on their own behalf, that Congress would of course dissolve the Presidency because they were puppets of their own creations, that in a years time the Sentinels would not only police but _govern_ the Western hemisphere…well, Congressmen were still thinking about constituent votes even when they knew there would be no election.

He threw the open paper back on the pile and walked outside, catching a dirty look from the clerk. He cast his eyes over the coastline – still no sign of a coyote. Not from this distance at least. He would have to walk along the beach.

"Sinister…help…me…"

He spun around on his heels to see a young woman he had never seen before, far more beat up than his earlier Neiman Marcus reflection. She was wearing what had been a suit at one point, but it had been drenched and dried in the blood streaming down from her forehead, covering her face and jacket and dignity.

She collapsed on her knees. Two slow, steady steps brought him to her, towering over her crying bloodied face. "Who are you girl, and how do you know my name?"

She wiped the snot from her nose with the side of her hand and then raised it to her face as though she could stop the flow of blood. "It's me! Don't you…I did what you wanted! I…I killed them…" she coughed red onto the pavement "I killed them all!" His blank stare was thrown back at him in the reflection of her crimson forehead.

"Girl, I don't know who you are or what you're talking about, but I _suggest_ that you stay out of my head!" He raised a heel over her head and snapped it back down, throwing the snotfaced psychic into the pavement. He turned around, not anxious to examine what affect the cracking sound had – he could hear sobbing, so she was alive. Good enough for her.

Sinister's new shoes were barely in the sand when he saw a figure with a boat and an oar, dressed in black. _Oh this is delicious_…

"Hello, madam. Would you by any chance be the person I speak with about…"

"Calisto." She stuck a firm arm out to shake, and he bowed down and gently kissed the top of her hand. Her eyes flashed, taken aback, before they narrowed curiously, studying him. "Are you…Fugu?"

The name flew over his head without notice. "No, I'm sorry. My name is Nathaniel. But if you would be so kind…" he gestured to her boat and she snapped back to reality.

"Sorry, just…looking for a few mutants. Get in."

Sinister climbed a leg over the side as Calisto dropped into the boat. Pushing off with the oar, the two began their slow crawl across the bay. It was Calisto who initiated the conversation.

"Nice suit. You don't come from the camps."

"You're correct. I'm a genetic scientist here in New York. Or I was. The Sentinels destroyed my lab." Sinister thought it was ironic to tell the truth every once in a while. "It's time I started my life somewhere else. And you? What drove you to this business?"

"My home was destroyed too. My family, friends, all killed."

Sinister felt like a stage-actor. He melodramatically feigned shock. "The Sentinels?"

"No. Other mutants. I still don't understand. In times like these, when the world hates us, shouldn't we be united against a common threat? You know, long ago there was a mutant named Charles Xavier. You heard of him?"

Hand up to his chest, voice dropping in pitch. "How could I not?"

"He believed in a mutant solidarity with humankind. We're all the oppressed here, in New York. The humans just as much as the mutants. Don't you think we should finish the job?"

"My dear, I always believe in finishing what you've started." She was turned to face New Jersey, to face freedom. His hands slowly reached out and clasped around her neck – no point in sending out flares to announce to the world where he was. Her head whipped back, eyes wide with shock, gasping for breath. Calisto's legs were soon to follow, kicking behind her, but Sinister was a step ahead, backing up in the boat. It had come to a stop, shaking under her struggle, threatening to capsize. Her arms flailed wildly, no longer with strategy or intent, just to hit a target. She failed, her limbs suddenly going lifeless. Sinister shook the last breath lodged in her throat – just in case. Fate had an interesting way of twisting itself.

He threw the body overboard, watching it sink into the bay, before taking up the oar to cross the rest of the bay. The warm feeling of having accomplished his goal, of not leaving New York City empty handed, filled him up in unusually breezy night. The rest of the journey was a cakewalk. He pulled the boat up to the rocky coast and hopped out, stretching his legs, bending over and working out his back – for the first time in a while, he was in no rush. He could get to Cairo when he got to Cairo – Apocalypse wasn't expecting him, and no doubt had adapted his plans when he heard that Sinister had been captured, just as Sinister had adapted his own. The two were beings that had existed for thousands of years. They knew the rules of change. But the time had finally come to slowly adjust back on track.

Sinister began to walk down the coast, looking for any signs of life. On his way he passed a diner – his stomach growled, then queased at the thought of such disgusting food – and then nothing for a while longer. Apocalypse had been working on a project, something to do with a passage in the New Testament, the Book of Revelations. Of course the Book of Revelations; Apocalypse's obsession with the text was bordering on insanity. First the name choice, from his Egyptian and perfectly villainous En Sabah Nur to the clichéd and Christian Apocalypse. Then his horsemen – how many had he gone through? Even Sinister had been the horseman known as Death once. There had been Plagues and Wars and Pestilences and other Deaths – and they all died eventually. It was the inescapable fate of a relationship with Apocalypse. Unless, of course, you forsook servitude and always stayed one step ahead of the boss. Sinister had such backstabbing down to an art.

He had no doubt that Apocalypse was trying to assemble four more horsemen as he crossed those New Jersey shore-boulders. He _always_ brought in four more slaves every time he had a new project. Whether it had been the Twelve, trying to collect the most influential mutants in the world, or the Plague that would kill all of the humans, or whatever his new scheme was. It never worked, and Apocalypse went back to find four more horsemen. Sinister thought that his two groups – the Nasty Boys and the Marauders – were superfluous, but one was spread amongst concentration camps and the other wasn't. So when he got back, he would be dealing with four more idiots, four more pets for Apocalypse to laud over while ignoring Sinister, keeping him ill-informed of plans. But he would still be alive at the end of the day.

Even his genetically enhanced muscles start to give out as the dark twinkling stars told him it was too late to do anything else that day. Sleeping in the suit though would invite unwanted hoodlums, and while nothing would start his day off right like killing a few worthless humans, he was not trying to attract attention. He kept walking.

Sure, Sinister himself had had his obsessions. The Summers child that he still believed could rule the world – if only he could get a hold of DNA from Scott Summers and Jean Grey. The last time he had heard, though, Summers had been in a concentration camp in New York, and Jean Grey had been killed in the Sentinel takeover of the Xavier Mansion. He had moved on, though. He still firmly believed that the key to creation lay in those two family lines, but the time-traveler Rachel Summers had proven sub-par compared to his grandiose expectations.

Study of the Phalanx had been a guilty pleasure of his as well. A techno-organic virus that could consume whatever it touched, could absorb mutant powers, memories, engulf everything? How it had peaked his interest! After stopping it along with the X-Men – he spit in the water that crashed against the rocks – he had taken a few samples to study. He had even tried, in a lab tucked away in the Savage Lands, to recreate a mutant with that power. His attempts had failed miserably, and years later he emerged, frustrated and futile.

And even the X-Sentinels had become something of a pet project of his. Living robots brought back memories of his work on the Phalanx, and while he made weapons for the enemy under lock and key, trapped away in the Baxter Building that lay miles behind him, a perfect shell surrounding a gutted and flooded building, his true aim had been approaching techno-organisms differently, searching for the answer. But that, too, had come to an end.

The difference between Sinister and Apocalypse was that Sinister knew when to give up and go home, to try something new and come back another day. Apocalypse's power was immense – far greater than even Sinister's – but power bred arrogance. He was yet to realize that immortality did not mean invincibility. It did not mean that the X-Men would not band together again and put a stop to their plans once more. That is, if Xavier was still alive.

Sure the X-Men had gone on without their fearless leader, but it had been under the guide of Cyclops, or Storm, or their other _qualified_ leaders. The only ones around now were what Xavier had called his Generation X "Young Mutants," kids too stupid to tie their own shoes let alone stop an international mutant terrorist. So they had nothing to worry about.

Dawn broke over a road sign – Route 38. Sinister crossed the street to the bridge and made his way onto the mainland. Progress. Calisto and the Morlocks had been stopped from producing more genetic misfits. Progress. And, an unintended consequence of the days activities, the Baxter Building had been all but demolished. It would at least take the Sentinels and whoever was working in that building a few weeks to reconstruct. Progress. Block after excruciating block, he was making progress. Shops started to appear, started to open, started to welcome customers, started to send employees on lunch breaks, started to ask patrons to make their final purchases, started to close. Sinister didn't stop walking, not for food or drink, not to rest his legs, not think. It was just before 7pm, almost 24 hours after he had killed Calisto, that he arrived at Newark Airport.

He scanned the airline names and picked one that sounded like it might, just maybe, fly to Cairo. Sinister approached the attendant behind the empty queue.

"Welcome to AirEgypt how can I help you today."

Sinister looked back confused. She had…said the words of a question. But nothing in voice had asked anything. "I need a ticket for one to Cairo." He reached down into his pocket to get the ID card.

"Will that be round-trip or one-way."

He looked back up again, forgetting his hand for a moment, staring at the attendant. The diamond on his forehead shone with the thought of killing the bitch before she procreated. "One-way."

"Ok, can I have your government-issued ID and form of payment please."

"Do you every actually _ask_ a question?"

"I'm sorry sir, what do you mean."

It took Sinister a full five seconds to realize that his mouth was slightly ajar, and that the stupidity in her was reflected onto his face. He put the S.H.I.E.L.D. card on the counter and looked her in the eye. "My ID _and_ form of payment."

"Ok, sir, so just to confirm, will you be billing this to your company."

Still stupefied. "Ye…ye…yes, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

Sinister rested an arm on the counter and leaned in close to her, keeping her in confidence, even though the ticketing section of the airport was deserted. He whispered, just a few inches from her face. "What ever gave you the impression that you had any right to exist," superfluously accentuating the last four words. He made sure not to make it sound like a question.

"Sir I…I'm not quite sure what you're asking."

"Exactly." He made no motion to back away or change his voice. "My boarding pass?"

She swallowed audibly, lowering her voice to match his. "Will you be checking any bags today."

"Do I look like I have any bags."

"No?"

Sinister almost jumped back at the rise in her voice, but kept his head level. "Will that be all?"

She lifted up a ticket sleeve in the small space between their eyes. "Your boarding pass sir. You have a nice flight, and th…th..thh..thhhhthththhthththank you for choosing AirEgypt."

Sinister snatched it from her hand and made his way for the gate.

He hadn't arrived at the most opportune time, and flights to Cairo weren't exactly hourly. A two-hour wait at gate B17 tried even his patience. He leaned back into an uncomfortable metal chair with just enough black leather for a person sitting upright not touch steel when he…

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Flight 704 with non-stop service to Cairo, Egypt. At this time I'd like to welcome our handicapped passengers as well as those traveling small children or other passengers who require extra time on board at gate B17." A short pause. "مساء جيّدة ، سيدات وشهام وترحيب إلى رحلة…" Sinister phased the voice out and started to collect his thoughts, working his eyes open. The gate had filled up since he had fallen asleep – why did so many people want to go to Cairo at 11pm?

They called his row and he got on the plane, dropping into the seat and falling back into the slumber that had been interrupted. His psychic powers were weak, but he had learned enough to shield his mind from outside intrusion when he slept for long periods of time, just in case. As a result, it was a dreamless sleep, one that lasted him the entire flight.

The jolt of wheels touching down on the ground woke him from his unconsciousness. He was disoriented at first, not sure of how much time had passed, where he was, was the deep orange glow from his window a rising or setting sun? Cairo – right. And with the time difference that would be a setting sin. Three days – three wasted useless fucking days. And by the time he would disembark from the plane, hail a taxi and start the trek into the desert, it would be nightfall. Of course, the taxi drive didn't notice – his neck was snapped in such a way that, lying hunched over the steering wheel, his glazed eyes could only see God. Or Allah, or whatever they called him around here. One lesson from a life lived for hundreds of years; names didn't matter.

Despite having been housed in the largest building in New York for over a year, keeping the company of 100-foot robots, the Pyramids still held beauty. It was the beauty of evolution, the creation of such monuments to humanity as the Pharaohs of their age. And just as homo-superior had taken the shape humanity had perfected and made if better, so too had Apocalypse done some renovations to these wonders.

As Sinister approached, a small door at the side of the pyramid seemed to slide into the wall, disappearing out of sight. The hallway was too narrow for a door to open inside – but Sinister had long stopped asking questions about this place. In all the years that he and Apocalypse had been…partners wasn't the word. Had had a common interest. In all of those years, Sinister had barely begun to discover the secrets of Apocalypse's network of pyramids. The hallway became a conveyor of sorts, which in less than a minute had brought Sinister to a chamber deep in the center of the Pyramid. Apocalypse had trust issues. There were very few people he allowed into his Lazarus chamber, and Sinister considered himself honored that he could see the Great Lord at his weakest. The Lazarus chamber was where Apocalypse recuperated his strength, sometimes for the night, some times for centuries. Time wasn't really important to him, but occasionally after taking a beating from the X-Men, or exerting himself, he needed rest – the Lazarus chamber concentrated the Egyptian sun's energy and poured it into him as life. It was by far the most impressive room that Sinister had seen of the pyramid. It was also where, with his closest allies, he preferred to do business.

The conveyer stopped at a wide series of shallow stairs that led up to what looked like a platform, but which those in the know knew was actually Apocalypse's resting place, a tanning bed covered in dirt. Sinister walked up two stairs and then dropped down to his knees. A phrase, and then he would wait, however long it would take, for acknowledgement.

"أتعهّد نفسي حتى النهاية من العالم"

Almost a full five minutes went by before Sinister heard the rumble. The platform opened up and the Great Lord himself seemed to rise from the ground. Funny, after a year with the Sentinels, Apocalypse was simply not as imposing.

"SO. YOU WERE RELEASED BY THE SENTINELS."

Sinister raised his head and stared Apocalypse in the eye. There were certain things at certain times with certain people one could get away with. More and more, he felt Apocalypse his equal. This was one of those times. "No, Apocalypse. I escaped. And nearly finished off the Sentinels with me."

"He also nearly killed all of the Morlocks." From a side entrance a gaunt white face appeared with bright yellow eyes. Sinister had never seen the man before. He looked vile.

"And who are you?"

"There's no need to be rude, Sinister." The man continued his slow approach, his hips mouthing arrogance.

"I'm not being rude, I asked you who you were." Sinister turned to Apocalypse, "My liege? This...freak marches in to your most private sanctum and you smile?"

The smile became a laugh that rattle Sinister's rib cage, but he made no move to respond.

"My name is Caliban." He was almost standing over Sinister, so he quickly made a motion to stand level with the newcomer. "I'm one of the few remaining _Morlocks_ that you so brazenly killed. What? You thought that you were the Lord's only servant? You thought that he didn't have eyes and ears in every corner of this globe!" They were now staring at each other eye-to-eye, crimson and topaz. The silence of seconds burned.

Sinister whispered and spit at the same time. "You should have died with your _kind_."

Here Apocalypse stepped in. "CALIBAN IS MY SERVANT AND YOUR EQUAL, SINISTER. SPEAK OUT OF TURN AGAIN AND YOU WILL DIE WITHOUT NOTICE. DO NOT BEGIN TO THINK THAT YOUR ABSENCE HAS RAISED YOU TO ANY SORT OF POWER. IT IS ALONE THAT WILL CONQUER THIS WORLD, AND YOU MAY SERVE ME FOR ETERNITY OR BE CRUSHED UNDER MY HEEL!"

Sinister prostrated himself in front of Apocalypse as Caliban flashed a grin of teeth. "And how, my Lord, will you conquer the world?"

"FIRST, WE MUST ASSEMBLE THE HORSEMEN."

Of course.

"CALIBAN AND OTHERS ARE SEARCHING FOR TWO MUTANTS IN NEW YORK. THE THIRD IS IN AFRICA."

"And the fourth…?"

"IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN. FOR NOW, SINISTER, YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED."

He had heard that line only three days ago. It was still just as unsettling.

Rita looked up at the Baxter Building in fear. But that man…he had the ID…they must've been hiring. And they must be offering protection. The outfit she had stolen from this building so long ago was tucked away in her backpack. She had been so afraid to wear it in so long; she had cleaned up, got a real job, spent the money from robbing banks so long ago on covering her tracks, and when it was gone, she never looked back. Not at the days when she was Yellowjacket.

She swung open the door and was stunned. The room was empty. The only sign anyone had ever been in this building was a giant hole in the ceiling and rubble underneath. What was she doing here, this was a mistake, she should just go home and…

"HALT MUTANT. SURRENDER OR BE TERMINATED."

The first time Naze had been in the meditation room of the Xavier Mansion, he was unaware of the unspoken rule of silence. The X-Men had been upstairs in the War Room receiving a mission that Forge had been called in to advise on. Forge had taken a call from his girlfriend of the time, Ororo Munroe, on his cell, and the only room around had been the empty one he stood in now, pillows and chenille, like the inside of Jeannie's bottle. She was back home visiting friends, and was about to go to sleep. Love was being able to say "goodnight" at 10 am without feeling the slightest bit of awkwardness. The relationship had ended when she got back. They were still on good terms. A week later he had found his X-Factor teammate, Jamie Maddox, sitting in meditation. He nodded to Naze, and it was then that Naze realized it was customary not to speak in the meditation room. Good to know.

There was an emergency exit in this room. Alchem, Hank, and Naze had let themselves in. The Mansion had become home to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technology experts who spent hours each day pouring over the wonders of Xavier's technology. They would be armed. They would have Sentinel body guards. And against them, the three were an inventor, a furry biochemist, and a 40-something novice that could inflate balloons with his bare hands. Great.

Whether out of stealth or custom, they crossed the room silently until Hank was able to see down the sub-basement hallway. He knew the place best of them all, it was only natural that he lead the way. One fuzzy claw reached for a pole above, and as soon as Hank made contact, an alarm went off. So it would come down to fists.


	4. Chapter 3

23 June 2012

On this day thirteen years ago I was born.

It was also the day that the world changed for mutants across the US. According to Piotr, this story has been told a hundred times, and every time someone comes from the future to fix it. Or goes from here to the past. But nobody time travels here. Nobody's _ever_ time-traveled.

The story usually starts with an assassination, but this time it was different. On this day, only three years ago, the Hampton Killer had been caught. His name was Tom Cassidy, an Irish thief with a penchant for murder and a fondness for women's toenails. He was also a mutant. Sure, he was executed, but execution isn't enough retribution; Black Tom had killed eighteen rich white trophy wives. And for that, we all have to pay.

Spearheaded by Senator Kelly, a well known Republican who made his career bashing mutants, a bill whizzed through Congress restarting the Sentinel program. It was a term I had only heard in hushed whispers even from my human parents, a black mark on US history, at the level of the Japanese internment camps. And just as infrequently discussed. It's just a little bit of history repeating.

Different killer, same result: thousands of mutants locked up in concentration camps across the country, collared to prevent the use of their powers, some forced to do manual labor. And that's how I ended up here, to celebrate my first birthday away from my parents, to come to share a cell with the man I love.

But I write about Piotr too much already in here. Today is my day, and I'm going to explain what happened on my day. The team of mutants to break us out has been assembled. Piotr and a man named James are our strongmen, James' cellmate Flicker our sniper, and Fugu, Daniel, and I will be providing support. We've discussed everyone's powers, and some of them make sense, and some of them are bizarre. Ok, Piotr can turn his skin to metal, I knew that. I won't lie, I'm excited about seeing it for the first time. But Fugu can exude poison from his pores? Why? Why would anyone want to do that.

Why would anyone want to be deaf, either? I guess with every mutation there must be regression.

Of course, collared, I can hear perfectly in the camp. The six of us had a discussion today, in which I heard everything. Four of us will be brought to the grinder in three days. Flicker is going to make a fuss enough to join. I don't know how James is planning on helping us. Of course, Daniel is so very antagonistic about the whole ordeal.

I also met a woman named Monika Thalberg at lunch, and she was able to solve a mystery of mine. She's one of the select few doing manual labor in the camp – the rest of us sit, rot, and wait our turn to die. But for whatever reason, she's mining. I would say it was her brute strength, except Piotr is in here with me. The woman is put together like a bodybuilder. A very hairy bodybuilder. I'm not quite sure what all the hair is for, but the tiny little setae on her arms and legs (impressed I know that word?) trap dirt and have started to give her an infection. I could tell before she told me. I can tell a lot of things when I'm not deaf.

When I told the rest my thoughts about the silent Sentinels, the reaction was mostly indifferent. Except a few little chortles from James and Daniel, who when they looked at each other sharing the same thoughts, they stopped. Men. But I think there's something more here – if, as the two gruff men say, Sentinels don't need the advantage of stealth, why were they flying silently through the air? A question for when we get out of here. So many questions for when we get out of here. But I can tell that it won't be easy.

-Pitch

Dragon 176

I am sick of this food. It serves one purpose and one purpose only; to provide an alibi for the Six to converse. I speak as though we're a team, but I suppose no confidence is broken when I write, to remember, to brand it on history, that only three will be leaving. Nothing against the others, but one of my new found allies here has told me of a larger plan. One that transcends the metal bars of this cage. One that encompasses the entire world.

People down the hall have been successively disappearing each day, in order of location. At this rate, I, Burns Things, and the two across the hall will be tossed in the slicer three days from now. The collar doesn't hurt much, but I'm reminded now of it every moment since my neck touched the free air. I wouldn't have much use for poison in here. Though, on second thought the Sentinels _do_ use other enslaved humans for most of the guard duty. I haven't found out how many guards versus how many Sentinels we will be dealing with in three days time. Our metaltwins can take care of them – the guards are my department.

I don't really know Daniel's role in this, but he had to be involved. Come break out, he wants to go by Scorch, or Flare, or Whee I Like Fire, or somesuch. We don't talk outside of the mess hall. At least, I don't talk. Or Flicker's. He's familiar with the solitary confinement. He's been rumored to have done some significant damage to the three Sentinels it took to subdue him with just medium-grade assault weaponry. Conveniently, all human guards are armed with medium-grade assault weaponry.

But I'm not a stupid man. I know there's only one who can't be trusted. The one who's truly masterminding this entire breakout. The one that Daniel knows somehow. James, although I doubt that that's his real name. I know enough to know that he's not always here. He's in and out as he pleases, but still makes a show of being a prisoner. He offers so much, yet reveals so little. The power, the glory that he promises is almost unbelievable, had he not removed my collar to prove that his word we would have been the Five instead.

So why not just remove the collars and fight? Like I said, only three of us are leaving.

Fugu

The following took place on Wednesday June 25 2012:

_The white is blinding, streaming in as a crack and then flooding in as the door is wrenched open. I have to squint to keep everything in focus, everything in order. Without my sight, the world is meaningless. Four silhouettes appear, my enemies a black grain against my other enemy, the white. They would have to be my enemies – there's no one else coming to visit me in this cell._

_Four? I must have made some impression. Before it had remained a steady two. Eight arms grab me and toss me into the light, I'm learning to appreciate it, I can make out faces now, glazed over faces dead without thought. They've been enslaved. All of the humans of New York have been enslaved._

_I can see the green neon flash from the back of their necks. It lets me know who is my friend and who is soulless, who is controlled by the Sentinels. Am I any different than these men? I am, after all, trapped in Hell, a.k.a. the Big Apple. The Sentinels tell me when to eat, when to sleep, when to walk amongst my dead comrades and remember that my time is short. Don't they control me too?_

_No, because I can fight it. And I always do._

_Another group of four falls in behind me as we approach the elevator. Eight? I'm flattered. Eight shining green beacons tell me I'm alone down in this Hell. Eight pairs of dead eyes reflect back that light which has now betrayed them, chosen to side with me, but only if I can reach it, rise up to it. Eight gun hilts glisten black, the true guards down here, hilted only out of an arrogance that tells them they aren't needed, that I'm no threat. My eyes Flicker down to them, waist high and ready. Oh yes, even with this damned collar around my neck, I can still Flicker._

_How? Training. When you are locked away for being too weak to stand up to a tin can, with nothing to look at but a spot on the door, you train. You look up, you look at the spot. You look up, you look at the spot. You repeat it, ten times, one hundred times, one thousand times, until your eyes are so fast between up and the spot that the distance is almost indistinguishable. Then, you pick another spot. That's what I had done day after day. That's what I had done today before the guards came to pick me up. That's why now, my eyes could Flicker to the guns. My eyes are always drawn to guns._

_The elevator brings us up to the mess hall. I've seen it empty before, although I guess none of the other prisoners have. Sentinels don't believe in cleaning up – what is sanitation to protect those that will die? Dirty dishes sit on dirtier tables, a thin coating of yesterday's mush sits on the floor, caking the day before's. My boots sink just a centimeter, maybe less, it's disgusting. Everything in here is vile._

_We turn down the same hallways, twisted and turning down halls I once knew but now no longer care about. We come up on the furthest end of an almost laughably long corridor of single- and double occupancy bar-walled cells, mostly occupied. The guards stop in front of the double cell so familiar to him, with the guest that is sometimes here, sometimes not. Now is sometimes._

_Green-switches never remember James. It works to his advantage. His face is ageless and feral, his eyes small slits that seem to growl at the brainless. I think for a moment: one asshole deserves another. It is good to be home. Whatever the fuck that is._

_The manacles come off as I'm shoved into my cell, landing in a heap on the floor, forcing my hands in front of me and turning into a sideways roll. I come up cursing – without this collar I could be on my feet no sweat. I sit up and push my hair out of my eyes. It's longer than I like, now._

"_Wanna get this damn thing off me?"_

_He looks up at me like I'm a kid. I'm 24. He's eternal._

"_And why would I wanna do that?"_

"_C'mon, man, you've already shown me you can do it. I just need to move a little. Just to move, just to get the kinks out of my muscles. It'll take two seconds, no risk."_

"_Better learn to squirm, kid."_

"_Tell me about Apocalypse."_

_He leaps to his feet and puts one hand on my head, the other around my neck. It's bent backwards staring up at the ceiling, at his mad eyes, at his flaring nostrils. _

"_You know what you need to know, fuckin' idiot. Mention that name again and you'll know a lot less."_

"_You won't kill me."_

_He tightens. "Go ahead. Threaten me."_

"_You want to bring me back alive. You want to make me more powerful. Get off me."_

_James snarls and throws my head with my body into the barred walls. Blood trickles down through my too-long hair, but I ignore it and sit up._

"_One more day, James. You sure you want me dead so soon?"_

"_One more day, William –"_

"_It's Flicker –"_

"_One more day, _William_," he emphasizes it now, "and everything starts. I can handle my own. After all, I _am_ the best at what I do."_

_There's a buzz, announcing demoralization time. I have been put away for so long in solitary confinement that until now I've forgotten it exists. They will come in two minutes to take us and walk us among those who have died in the fight. I wanted to record this day. The last day I spend in the concentration camp._

Piotr had been preparing himself all day for what was about to happen. He had been going over the plan over and over again in his head. He had spoken the last words necessary to Pitch, Fugu, and Daniel. He had even rubbed the bars of his prison against his body, reminding himself what cool metal felt like. It had been years since he had used his mutant power, he was beginning to forget he had one.

It seemed that his comrades were doing the same, Pitch lying down with his fingers in his ears, Daniel blowing heat onto his hands, Fugu stretching his legs, rubbing his arms roughly. An escape, conducted by geriatrics too old to use their powers and children to young to have ever been trained on them. The odds looked good. He had not seen the greatest geriatric of them all, that day. Logan was always undependable, and it was questionable whether or not Flicker would be able to cause enough of a scene to get thrown in the Grinder with the rest of them. So the four of them had made a Plan B. Eight years with the X-Men had taught him, always have a Plan B.

The thunderous footsteps approached. No more practice. It was time.

"Mutants. You are to come with this unit." Not even asking. Someone needed to

teach these robots some pleasantries. His collar began to tighten. What was going on? It felt like immense…electricity…the others as well…

Everything went black.

Pitch woke with a startle, but had enough sense to keep his eyes closed. He didn't need to check to see if the collar was on; he could hear normally. Sound would be his best bet of getting acquainted with the situation. Echoes meant the chamber was vast, a clang, and the cold on his face, suggested that the floor was metal. Two pairs of footsteps intoned behind him, middle G# as they hit the metal, walking away from him. Breathing immediately above him. The hydraulic parts of Sentinels moving to which he had become so accustomed. From two, no, three directions. A cough from far to his left. The rattle of a large gun that was changing hands. The unfolding or reading of some piece of paper directly in front of him. That put the total at six men and three Sentinels. A level was pulled in front of him – same guy or different? Suddenly, he could no longer make out anything. The sound filling the room, bouncing off the metallic walls, was both deafening and revolting.

_Crrrrrrrrrunch_

_Crrrrrrrrrunch_

The Grinder. Appropriate.

He heard a door swing open behind him – trying to get his bearings by picking out sounds through the rumble of a hungry machine – and an unmistakable voice started, louder than the Grinder itself. Its mechanical whirling betrayed its speaker.

"This mutant has caused too much trouble. He is to be terminated with the others." Four sentinels. And six _or seven_ greenlights, or green-switches, or whatever people called them. A year hadn't been enough to come to a consensus on terms, and at the planning meeting they were just referred to as flatscans, a derogatory term for _homo sapien_.

He heard a thud near to him, and then a human voice – Flicker's. Somebody hadn't been knocked out.

"You want me you fucking piece of garbage? Come and get me! I don't need my mutant powers to take you down, trash can!"

"You will wait your turn, mutant." Diagonal right, one of the ones he had heard before? He hoped so. _Visualize the sound, Pitch, visualize and plan_. The hydraulic movement again from the Sentinel that had spoken _I hope_ in his direction. "This mutant is to be terminated first." Same direction but closer. A mechanism whirled overhead, getting louder, and suddenly Pitch was off the ground, his legs being squished between two giant metal pillars. Sentinel fingers, no doubt. He braced himself for the noise – prepared to divert the sound waves around his body so that he wouldn't kill himself when the collar came off. It was a crucial moment, for if his powers activated themselves again and he came into contact with every soundwave of the planet, the noise would rip his ears to pieces. So it was a voluntary deafness, but a necessary one. He could fight deaf. He had planned to fight deaf. The others would be his ears.

And then, it happened. The pop, and the sudden and absolute silence, all at once. He could not see. He could not hear. He could only feel that he was still moving, swinging in the air towards some insensible goal. It was time to test the waters, quickly. One by one, local sounds reached his ears. The paper was being refolded, that wasn't it. The gun was being cocked, not that either. Something from the team, from the Six, or Five, or whateverthehell they were. A smoker's cough! But not Fugu's – the same man as before.

It was taking too long. Why hadn't the assault started? He needed to know. Whether the Sentinels believed him unconscious or not no longer mattered.

Pitch opened his eyes. The others were still lying on the floor. Flicker stood, waving his arms, Pitch picking up the curses thrown at them, but what could he do without guns? Without something to throw? Without someone to aim at? And all were still collared. The Sentinels were going to kill them one by one – an eventuality none of them had planned for. This was all wrong, this was…

Pitch lashed out with his powers, surging the whirr of the machine towards the Sentinel carrying him with all of his might. Suddenly, the sounds of the world came flooding into his mind.

A dog barking in a park in Beijing.

A man, letting out a moan after masturbating, in Paris.

The crash of metal falling on metal in a manor in upstate New York.

A fire alarm in a dorm building at Oxford.

A telephone conversation coming from both Madrid and Barcelona.

A grandmother screaming after an ex-convict, laughing, who had robbed her purse.

A woman, gasping for breath in the sea near Genosha.

A child laughing at a cartoon in Scotland.

A German man, praying in Toronto.

Every drop of rain landing on the rooftops of Tokyo in a thunderstorm.

Demands for justice in Buenos Aires.

The snap of a golf ball flying through the air in North Carolina.

An elderly gentleman, slurping pasta in Florence.

The maniacal laughter from a tomb deep beneath Cairo.

A boy who had just reached his teenage years, after having been dropped 90 feet, making contact with the metal floor, the squish of his brain spreading out, feeling around, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

_I love you…_

Flicker stared up in awe as the little boy plunged down to the ground head first, his neck making a _crack_ on impact. He couldn't see if the boy was alive, but it didn't matter – he had done something to the Sentinel, and it now began to teeter above him. James had said that there would be casualties amongst them. There was nothing that he could do.

The Grinder, which had never stopped, resumed its noise just as the Sentinel collapsed upon his prey and his own weapon. The contraption sucked it in, the wheels flinging sheets of metal all over the room. There was a rumbling – the Grinder wouldn't hold for much longer.

He made a quick count: eight green-switches that were running for cover, forgetting to aim their guns at the new threat, three Sentinels that were still standing already searching out mutant life, and his three other partners who had already gotten to their feet to find haven from the debris.

Flicker bent his neck around, dodging a bolt that was aimed at his neck, before raising his hands into the air. Each one came down holding a sharp piece of metal – tools. He needed tools. A jolt ran through his body. Blood streamed down his palms, marks of the cross that ran along his veins, tracing a path to the ground. _Fucking collar._

Arms crossed, right became left and left became right as the blades which had sliced his hands now left to find different victims. To his left, his right blade sought the throat of a shorter man, his back to a large pillar holding up the room, doubled over in a cough, shrinking his size further. His eyes were not nearly as concerned as they should have been – Pandora's box had just been opened, and this man and his cancer stick were sending smoke signals to the hell unleashed. The damn lefty raised up his arm to cover his mouth just as the blade approached, lodging into his forearm, pointing to the sky. He said nothing, showed nothing. Instead his free arm slipped down to the holster on his hip and pulled out a free gun. Without another arm, he didn't have perfect aim, but the barrel was pointed close enough to Flicker that he was concerned.

The left blade's target was closer – the guard who had been standing over his friends had taken off running to the opposite wall, no doubt to the opposite pillar. The sheet of Sentinel scrap hit him square in the back of the neck, piercing the green flashing beacon. Flicker had heard that destroying the green switch that gave the slaves their names had the same effect has trying to remove the collar, but he had never seen it first hand. The green became a white electricity that coiled around the flatscan's neck, crackling like lightning up to his face and peeling it off, choking off the air and searing the blood that escaped his pores.

It happened in an instant, the same instant that the ground beneath his feet erupted in a burst of pink light. The Sentinel to his left had fired from its palm a large energy beam, sweeping Flicker off the floor before he landed on his back. He didn't have a chance to see beyond the moment, his head was spinning from the impact. He had taken down one and handicapped another. Time for the rest of the mutants to get their asses in gear.

He lifted his head to keep an eye on the action. The ground that he had been standing on had piled up as a blockade to hide behind. It would keep him out of the sights of the Sentinels for about, oh, three seconds. Colossus had been the first to his feet but had stopped moving – he was staring the direction of the Grinder. _Pitch's body. Wonder if there was more to that than we all thought…_Fugu was already making his way to the wounded soldier. And Daniel was no where in sight.

Flicker flipped his body over and dove for the dead soldier on his right. He hovered, unsure of when to move, trying to get at the gun now trapped between the cold floor and the cold body. He reached underneath and tried to pry it loose – no go. The corpse's fingers had tightened during the seizure. Bolts started flying from the ground as a trail of bullets from a semi-automatic drew closer. It was coming from his right, another guard pinned against the wall. A twist of his fingers and the helmet from the body was off and flying towards the green-switch on the wall. He didn't check to see if it made contact, but the stream of bullets paused, giving him time to turn the dead guard over. Flicker searched the pockets and found a decent pocket knife. It would have to be quick, clean, and strong as fuck.

The blade ripped through the bone of the first, then the second wrist, carrying in its teeth chunks of bluing flesh. Ten fingers stayed wrapped around the handle and the barrel, but Flicker didn't mind adjusting a little. It was clean, the blood had stopped pumping quickly, and what little was left drained as soon as the wrists were severed and Flicker had turned them upside down while aiming the gun. He fired, but the green-switch, now with a black eye from the helmet, ducked behind the pillar his friend had sought desperately as cover from the vomiting Grinder. He was getting careless, relying too much on his mutant powers. He should've been able to lead that shot.

He took to his feet, and three steps towards the column a blast from the direction of the Grinder – now somewhere to his left – flung him against the opposite wall. The green-switch would have a clear shot. Flicker looked up to search for the bullet that would end his life, but the guard was no longer behind the pillar. The all-too-familiar hydraulics sounded directly behind him, as his eyes blinked up to the robot towering immediately above him. He hadn't hit a wall at all, he had hit a foot. A whole the size of some bathrooms opened in its palm, dropping a weighted net. The knife was out and slicing before it could ever entangle him.

Something else had escaped the Sentinel. So the net was never supposed to capture him – it was supposed to delay him. Flicker rolled to his left, catching himself in the rope mesh. The crash of a harpoon large enough to turn a whale into ribbons clanged onto the floor, its point landing a foot away. Its shaft, which could have been mistaken for yet another pillar in the room except it didn't reach the ceiling, began to tilt down, crashing away from him. Flicker eyed the tip now point directly at his head – could it really be a 12-foot diameter blade? His hands went for the knife that had tangled itself in the net during the tumble, and tripped. Somehow, his body was enmeshed beyond a simple tug. It was going to take some skill and some time to get out.

The shadow of a hand grew larger and larger around him until as far as he could make out, the mirror-like floor was cast in darkness. Flicker hopped in the net to the harpoon and ducked under the tip, angling himself under. His hands went up to the point and he threw the rope over it. Head lowered, he saw just below him the gun with two hands still attached. If the plan worked, it was in the perfect position. Suddenly, the shadow started to shrink around him. It was concentrating on the harpoon. And then the pressure came.

Ninety feet of robot began pressing down on the edge of its own pencil, using Flicker's back as a fulcrum. _So much for that plan_. He wrapped his arms back to his stomach, tucked his body into a ball, and rolled. The angled tip slid off his back and fell to the ground as the world spun sideways and upside down. He saw Daniel – somewhere in the room, his orientation was all screwed up – standing on the wall? He had a metal chain in his hands, wrapped around a guard's neck above him, choking the life out of him. Flicker thought he saw a grin.

Suddenly there was a sharp pain down his left leg, but Flicker wasn't paying attention. He saw the floor and then the room spun again, this time Fugu was running the ceiling? A thin white leg came down and met with an upside-down guard's face. Another view of the floor and Flicker was back on his feet, facing the east wall. Quick orientation was a fringe benefit of a life with his powers – _just to get this fucking collar off!_ – and he turned right to face the Sentinel that had attacked him as it tried to raise itself from its attack. There was only a little bit of time. The burn in his leg had gotten worse – he looked down to see blood streaming from an open and deep wound, with the guard's pocket knife jammed to the handle inside him. He needed it to escape from the net, from the room, from the camp, from this fucking miserable life, and that's all that mattered. Pain was secondary now. Tethered together, his hands slipped down his leg and with one pull the knife was out. It almost took him with it.

The room went dizzy with the throbbing, his head felt like it would at any moment fall to the floor. _Concentrate_. His eyes flickered back and forth, trying to find something steady to hold on to. _Cut the net_. A twitch, and his fists unclenched, dropping the knife to the floor. In the clamor of the room, Flicker could hear the soft ping of metal on metal that sounded as a death toll. The Sentinel was up, and its open palm was pointed directly at Flicker.

He dove as the energy blast raced towards him, throwing his body to his right to avoid landing on his wounded leg. Instinct was protecting him here. Only had thrown himself away from the knife. Instinct would also kill him. The pink aura disappeared into the air, and as soon as Flicker saw it was safe, he began the army crawl towards the knife. Another blast, now the Sentinel was on his right. Flicked log-rolled left as pink met the spot where he should have died. The metal melted away into a hole, the edge dripping down into an empty void. Two more kicks and he was at the knife. He didn't even pay attention to the slashing, it just happened, instinctually. The third blast, but this time Flicker had mobility. He cartwheeled away from the blast – his little taunt at those who couldn't feel anger anyways – and just as he uprighted himself there was a woosh by his ear. He looked down to see a dead green-switch lying at his feet, and glanced over his shoulder. Colossus wiped his hands on the prisoner's orange pants and then ran towards Daniel, who himself was running circles around one of the Sentinels. Looked like this one was all his.

He raced to the guard and lifted the thankfully-holstered handgun. What the flatscan had hoped to do with a _handgun_ Flicker had no idea. What he himself intended to do was beyond him as well. Except, well, shoot the fucking thing. The Sentinel was gearing up for another shot. He would get his off first.

The sight came up to his eye level. And as they said – although who 'they' were Flicker never knew, _probably the Jews_ – "an eye for an eye." A pop, and optical parts came spewing out of the Sentinel's face, as much as technology can spew. Another pop and the damn thing was blind. Time to finish this.

Flicker ran back to the Sentinel's feet and the rifle. There was only one thing that he knew of in this room that could take down the giant robot, and that was the AR10 Carbine sitting at its feet. _Should've crushed it with the harpoon, dumbass!_ He flipped, arms outstretched towards the ground, and as he was upside-down scooped the gun into his hands. He came up standing and let hell out of the end of a nozzle. Bullets went streaming into the purple plated chest, tearing metal away from the towering robot. The dead guard's hand attached to the barrel shot up in flames from the heat. Flicker knew he was screaming, but the shooting and scraping overpowered his own voice, ruining his ear drums. _Okay, what I wouldn't give to get out of this fucking collar_ and_ get a decent pair of Ears_.

The Sentinel fell piece by piece to the ground, until Flicker was unloading the rest of his magazine on the wall. Time to help the others. He spun around to survey the situation. Two other Sentinels were still standing, Daniel and Colossus were trying to take down one as the other fired on them, and Fugu was occupied with two guards to the left. There were others hiding behind still more pillars – Flicker could see two others off hand. Daniel and Colossus would have to wait; Flicker was in no shape to fight another Sentinel just yet. He started to sprint towards the two guards before they noticed him, but before he could take two steps he was on the ground writhing. Heat seared up his left leg all the way to the side of his ribcage. Dizziness set in and the room, which was already sideways, began to make somersaults and zoom in and out of focus. He quickly got to his feet and his vision went into meltdown. His stomach convulsed, and six months of prison porridge gushed forth from his mouth to the floor. It was coming from somewhere so deep inside of him, a place he didn't know existed. And every time he thought it was over, more would come, a fountain of pinkish beige that seemed to be taking every vital organ out of his body. Sweat rolled down his face which felt like it was being pulled at from every angle, stretched out until it couldn't stretch anymore, making his mouth large enough to let his lungs out, his kidney, his heart. But instead, all that came out was more beige, with chunks of once-bright colors. _Where the fuck is James?_

If he didn't fight, if he relied on the others to finish the job, he wouldn't make it out alive. But after what had just happened, and now with the injury that he was acutely aware of, he didn't have any fight left in him. He hoisted himself up and started to hobble towards the guards. Of course they had seen him. They were now taking aim. He lifted his head to look, dejectedly, at the bullets flying towards him.

Whether out of instinct or weakness, Flicker went prone. Bullets whizzed above as the guards redirect their aim towards him. Too late. He tossed the knife that had saved him and doomed him at the guards, spinning blade over handle, another coin toss. Hopefully, this time the knife would save him, make it two for three. _Or it could break even_. The handle of the blade knocked one assault rifle to the right as half a magazine was unleashed point blank on the other green-switch before the shooter realized what was happening. _Brainwashing makes you_ slow_, fuckers!_

He was already on his feet and moving, the burn shooting up to his temple. His entire left side wanted to fall off, but he ignored it. Hopping became running became sprinting to save his life. The pain didn't matter anymore. Only an exit mattered. _JAMES, YOU FUCK! WHERE ARE YOU_? The sound of bone cracking brought his attention back to the present. He had made it to the other guard and his elbow was currently trying to find the wall on the other side of the flatscan's skull. The visage staring back at him was fear's poster-child. It had a black eye – the same damn soldier he had hit with a helmet. And the other eye was now worse. For once, he had made a green-switch _feel_. The metal feeling on his elbow told him he had dug hard enough into the eye socket to kill the fuck. It told him his work was done.

Flicker wrenched it out of his face and wiped it on the guard's shirt before he had a chance to fall lifeless to the ground. Time to resurvey – Colossus and Daniel will still on the Sentinel, Fugu had killed his two guards and had moved on to the other Sentinel. Perfect set up. Help the one he planned to escape with and then leave Colossus and Daniel to…shots fired at him from the right, deeper into the chamber. He saw a green-switch, lying on the ground behind the grinder, bits and pieces of metal sticking out of him like a pin cushion. But he was alive, and firing. Footsteps from his left – _where did this guy come from?_

Instinct drew his fist around to punch the approaching green-switch square in the face. The guard jolted back and then regained his ground, lunging after Flicker. A turn and a roundhouse kick and the guard was on the ground, but Flicker wasn't even looking; his head – in fact, his whole body – was turned to the pillar that was his cover. Arms outstretched, as soon as the kick landed he grabbed the column and swung his body around it 360. He released and landed, standing up, on the green-switch's chest. A gasp of air escaped the guard. Flicker was ready to move on to the one shooting at him, but apparently this guard wasn't finished. His hands wrapped Flicker's ankles and pulled. Somehow, as Flicker soared to the ground, the green-switch got up and kept him above the ground. Small blessings? His still-queasy stomach churned as he flew back up, the flatscan lifting him by his ankles into the air before slamming his entire spine and head into the ground. He couldn't move, but he was sure his body had made a dent in the metal below him. Everything felt paralyzed. Everything was numb. There were already two dead bodies next to him. He would make the third.

The guard placed a foot on his chest, the other on his neck, toe on the side of his face. The fucker was going to snap his neck. Flicker twitched, looking for a tool to use. His right hand found it – the helmet that he had launched to this side of the room. A smooth, fluid motion, and the helmet crashed into the guard's groin as he doubled over in pain, cupping his manhood. He was protecting the wrong part. Another sweep, this time breaking the helmet in two over the guard's head. Whether unconscious or dead, he wouldn't be a problem for Flicker until he got the fuck out of here. Except now there was a lifeless body on top of him. He picked the green-switch up and threw him off. Almost as instantly, the guard's body was riddled with bullets from the direction of the Grinder. _Well, he's dead now_. Flicker hesitated, unsure of whether to get up, and instead shimmied backwards on the ground towards cover.

Back to a pillar and sitting on his ass, he leaned forward to pick off yet another gun. This time the guard only had a handgun, a .40, but as long as it had bullets it was a tool in Flicker's hands. He peered out behind the pillar at the guard behind the Grinder who was now looking for another target. Stupid man. Three shots from the handgun ended the flatscan's fucking miserable existence.

Flicker took the chance to look for anybody else. _Survey says? Just two Sentinels. What can go wrong?_ He lifted himself to his feet and ran to join in the fray. As he approached, he tried to sense a strategy. Colossus was beating at the legs of one as Daniel distracted it by jumping up and down and then dodging. Fugu was sprinting circles around his…trying to make it lose balance? Without weapons, without powers, what exactly did they hope to do? Tire out a fucking robot?

He threw the .40 over his shoulder – it wasn't going to do anything in this fight. He needed more fire power. He needed…the room spun and he was down on his back once more. His head throbbed, his stomach churned, his leg burned in agony.

"Please," he murmured, "let it be over."

"Oh I wouldn't give you the satisfaction you little _fuck_." The last word was spit out on to his face. He looked up to see death's gaze staring back at him. The face was peeling off, flesh still bubbling from burns, swelling and popping as drips of skin fell into Flicker's eyes. A dark bleeding line around the guard's neck should've taken his head off. It was the green-switch whose switch had been destroyed. So the legends _weren't_ true after all.

"Tit for tat, you son of a bitch." There was a crack as the half-dead guard stomped a boot on each of Flicker's hands. It was then that he saw the two blood-crusted stumps for arms waving above him. The flatscan dug in further, the pain became more excruciating, he would stomp, he would jump, the bones were breaking one by one. Flicker didn't even notice the other guard approaching. He still had a piece of broken Sentinel in his arm.

"Tit for tat, indeed." Compared to his deranged partner, this one seemed almost nice. His right hand went up to rip the metal out of his arm. Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground and began to saw at Flicker's wrist. The pain was deafening, the grate of metal on bone was nauseating. His stomach began to heave, needing to throw up but unsure of what to send – there was nothing left in his body. He tried to scream, but it came out as a whimper. Hazy figures just a few yards from him ran circles around Sentinels to battle for their lives, as he lay here unable to do anything. He saw Fugu on the ground, saw Daniel run to save _him_ but not Flicker, no nobody was going to save Flicker. Fugu lifted a hand – a hand – for Daniel to help him up. He could see the clasp, the lift, the grenade escaping the Sentinel's hand that neither of them saw, the landing, the slow ooze of a green gas that enveloped them, Daniel's choking, the slightest hint of a smile barely touching Fugu's lips. Daniel collapsed to the ground as turned his back to the one-time Ghost Rider. The Sentinel lifted a foot to stomp. At least _Daniel_ got to be unconscious for his death. Fugu simply walked away.

No.

No, this isn't how it ends. _I can live_. _I can get out of here alive._ Blood splattered on his face; Flicker was unsure of if it was his own or the now-dead Daniel. But it was like water, it brought him back to reality. It brought him back to life. Mustering all of his strength he flung his _right_ leg – he was tempting fate, not taunting it – up to meet the back of the head of the guard sawing off his right hand. He didn't knock forward; instead, his eyes glazed over as he slumped to the ground. Flicker saw the indent of his food on the green-switch's skull.

The loon standing over him began to shriek with rage, but it was too late; Flicker's left arm reached around, grabbed the gun off of the other guard's hip, and pointed it upwards. Four bullets landed directly in the crotch. He fell backwards, thankfully. Flicker looked over at his right hand, and the sight brought up whatever was left down in his stomach. His wrist had been halfway cut through. It was useless, it was dead weight. He had to…the familiar tightening of his face came back. It wouldn't stop until the job was done.

He reached for the green-switch's pocket knife; no sense in using that piece of scrap metal. It would be clean and easy, just like the other idiot's. Just another hand. His stomach tied itself in knots, trying to strain out the last of the beige goodness. Left hand hovering at the wrist, he wondered if he'd ever be able to fight well again. It was one thing to do it to another, but to himself, he couldn't…

A boot closed down on his left hand, bringing the blade down to finish his wrist in one solid motion. Standing above him was Fugu.

"Get it done, and move. We've still got two Sentinels, and it's just us two, now."

"Where's Colossus?"

Fugu nodded his head towards a pillar. There, about four feet from the ground, the giant Russian hovered, panic in his eyes, spread eagled in fear. And a spear pinning him to the wall. Fugu offered a hand, which Daniel refused, and instead hopped himself up to his feet. The two Sentinels had turned to face them. No more flatscans, no more help. Two-on-two. Seemed the odds were fair – with Flicker handicapped, of course.

A quick nod to his partner before he started running left as fast as he could. Fugu sprinted to the right – much faster on his feet than Flicker would ever think the sickly man could manage. But they understood that they were each on their own now, and yet had to depend on the other's success to finally end this. Flicker dodged behind one of the all-too-familiar pillars where he had seen two bodies on the floor. One had his neck snapped, the other didn't have a mark on him. And they were still armed. Fugu's work, clearly. He reached down with his right hand to grab a gun before remembering. _Fuck!_ With his left hand he dragged up an assault rifle – an odd choice, an M16A2, but it would get the job done – and tried to aim it at his Sentinel. The robot's eyes were staring through the column at him – _damn DNA detection_. There wasn't much time.

He threw the gun up with one hand, but it was too front-heavy. It kept falling down, and without his right hand to balance the rifle, he couldn't get a shot. His left arm tensed up trying to squeeze the trigger in holding up the gun, but it was no use. A purple arm started to swing towards him. Time to move. The Sentinel's fist crashed into the pillar, shaking the entire chamber. He could risk another column as cover – _and if it comes down? Do I just bring the whole room down on both of us?_ He saw another hiding spot in the room, something that wasn't crucial to bearing the weight of their battle ground. He was missing a hand, his leg was slashed open, his head was throbbing in pain, and he couldn't hold anything larger than a handgun. Oh yeah, this was going well.

Fugu made it to his side before Flicker was even halfway behind cover. He was running out of fight plans. Everything had been designed with the total use of everyone's powers. And Pitch, Colossus, and Daniel were supposed to be alive until the end. Plans changed, but that didn't mean Fugu had to like it. And adaptation wasn't his forte.

The collar wasn't the issue, not now especially. Poison could only do so much to _robots_. So he had resorted to his speed, his agility – not a mutant gift, but one he had honed over the years running from 'clients'. Mutant powers added a whole new dimension to the underground, and if his poison could be sold in small doses to achieve a higher sense of illusion and happiness than Ecstasy tablets, then his own brand of "X" was just another fringe benefit. And danger. The types that dealt in the mutant drug trade were Don Corleones with the ability to manipulate their own mass so as to become invincible. The only way to outwit was to outrun. And these Sentinels weren't half as dangerous as the Kingpin.

There were pillars to his left away from the Sentinel and right that, given their scale, wouldn't make a difference in position. He could retreat, he could run the Sentinel down, there was only so long the thing should be able to go without a change in batteries. But there was only so long Fugu could keep running without it starting to hurt – he was really only good in short spurts. So it was time to make his last stand. He launched himself to the pillar on his right and started to climb, throwing his whole body off and back on to save time. Hand over hand was for those who didn't know what they were doing.

He had climbed up about ten yards and could see straight ahead the Sentinel's lowered fist. It was really the first opportunity that had presented itself all day. Fugu kicked off the pillar and flung himself through the air, reaching out to the machine that was trying to kill him as his only chance for salvation. His arms hugged the giant metal arm as gravity pulled him back towards earth. His hands and armed started to burn, the sliding friction seeming to only speed his descent. He reached his feet up and around the arm and braced himself with the soles of his boots. It seemed to work. Now to get back up.

The arm was much thicker than it seemed. Fugu hadn't really thought that, even though the whole Sentinel was easily over a hundred feet tall, the arm would be proportionally as large. His own limbs couldn't even wrap all the way around, but that wouldn't stop him from shimmying up. The Sentinel, however, was a different story.

Only about a minute later did Fugu start to hear clicks and whirrs coming from inside the arm. As he continued, the noises started to sound like latches being released. He was halfway up the arm, about sixty feet from the ground, when he stopped, just for a second, to catch his breath. He looked down to see Flicker ducked behind the remains of the Grinder, shooting a small handgun wide of anything Fugu could possibly consider a target. He still thought guns could win this fight. But strangely, Flicker was getting closer and closer. Fugu's head shot up to see the head of the Sentinel getting further and further away as the arm plummeted to the ground. The sneaky bastard had detached his arm!

There were two options: he could climb down, stay about five or ten feet above the base of the hand, wait until impact, and jump off. The fall would hurt, but not more than anything else that he had been through today. He would have to figure out another way to fight this thing, but he had learned through the years to never stay too long in a plan. But he had already forgotten the other side of that coin – don't forget that the best will always go wrong. The other option was to climb _up_. The top was closer, not by much, but if he hit the ground from there, it was over: the arm would either explode and take him with it, or topple down and take him with it. But he could jump from there onto the body of the Sentinel. It went against the grain for Fugu's common practice, but he was forced to recall another saying about desperate times and their measures.

He raced up the arm, his stomach starting to feel the strain of being off the ground for so long. The last hop was the hardest as only one hand managed to get a hold on the edge of the now-detached arm. His body flew through the air now, his feet and other hand unable to attach to anything. He swung, over and over until finally his other hand reached the edge. Struggling, Fugu pulled himself up and was able to stand. He looked below and saw his exit. A bellybutton – these Sentinels were sticklers for details. Whatever its purpose, it looked like it was a starting point

Fugu ran towards the edge and jumped, his feet planting on the platform, shock rippling through his body. He tilted his head in ten different directions to get a grasp of the situation. But at least his body wasn't moving. He had thought that this platform would be a resting place, but it appeared to be more. Much more.

Flicker was use to environmental combat – learning to adapt to his surrounding, finding cover in unlikely places, using just about anything as a tool in his proverbial belt. But there was nothing else to do here, he was just buying time. All of the guns around him were out of ammo, and maybe half of his shots had landed, if that. The Sentinel had been sending wave after wave of energy bolts at him. Ironically, the only thing keeping him alive was the hollowed out corpse of the Grinder – it had been blasted so many times it would have been unrecognizable to anyone new who decided to enter the room. _Like JAMES, PERHAPS? I could really use some help now_. How were you supposed to use a room that had a dozen dead and disarmed bodies, pillars both standing and destroyed, and a broken killing machine.

Oh. That was simple.

Flicker's mind suddenly went into tunnel-vision, concentrating on the machine before him. Something had to make it tick. He was so focused that he tuned out even the rumbling of his attacker growing nearer and nearer, or the enlarging shadow as the hand came down to crush him. _Found it_. He pulled out a knife, _the _knife, the one that less than an hour after it had taken his hand he _knew_ he would carry for the rest of his life, and struggled to strip it of its synthetic handle. Only full on metal was going to work here. The shadow was getting closer, but now Flicker was going to win. Finally he resorted to holding it with his teeth and tugging off the rest. It dropped the blade back into his hand and gripped so hard it drew blood. The wound looked like a zero, a circle from the start of battle, and now a diagonal slash through it to end.

His arm reached up like the Statue of Liberty, driving the knife home into the palm of the Sentinel's hand. It barely stopped the robot's progress, but it didn't have to. His hand left the blade and dug to the large chord he had found, stripped and spraying electricity into the air, spitting up like only Flicker knew how. The Sentinels exterior completely protected the wirings inside. But he wasn't aiming for the exterior.

He held up the electric snake, writhing uncontrollably in his hand, but sparks started to land on the knife, slowly at first, until he managed to build an arcing ray of power. The Sentinel's hand stopped in place, less than a foot from his head, and smoke began to pour out of the gash that the knife had made. It was working. The electricity flew through Flicker as well, but he was almost entirely unaware. It was working.

Yet again Flicker tried to use his right hand before realizing it wasn't there. He tried to tie the chord around the Sentinel's finger one-handedly, but after touching the exposed end twice he didn't want to try a third. It was a timing game, but it was working. He turned to see Fugu's progress – last he had checked he had been climbing up an arm? Now he was nowhere in sight, but the arm was less than two seconds from crashing to the ground. _How did that happen? Is he dead?_ The thought dawned on him at the last possible moment.

Flicker dropped the chord, yanked the knife out, and ran as fast as he could from the shadow, just before the palm landed on the ground, yet another pillar to replace the one he had destroyed. A monument to Flicker's genius plan that had failed. And a reminder that the battle was not yet over. All he had managed to do was make it ditch a fucking arm. _Tit for tat_.

He didn't look back at it, he just ran, ignoring the pain shooting through his leg. It didn't exist right now. There was room enough for the far wall – Fugu's wall, but plans change – the one-armed Sentinel, and himself. He didn't even make it that far. The Sentinel only needed one arm to send an energy blast that hit just below his feet, flinging him forward and bashing his head into a column. He landed upside with his back against the pillar and his feet dangling over his head. From this position, the Sentinel was twice as imposing, and for a moment Flicker felt honest to goodness fear. It was revolting. _Get your wits about you, dumbass, and think!_ He dropped his legs to straddle the column, laying prone on his stomach and pushing himself up with his left arm. He was up, but now without a plan. _If at first you don't succeed_. He had taken an arm down, right?

Flicker ran back to the chord to see if lightning ever struck twice.

The bellybutton of the Sentinel was a giant circular tunnel, about fifteen feet long, with all of the walls exposed. The back wall was some sort of air lock, but Fugu didn't even care what was behind it. From inside he could see wires leading all the way up to the head. How could the designers be so careless? He walked the length of the tunnel, looking for a wire low enough that he could use to swing up. Halfway down he found one; a thin green chord that looked like it contained two wires side by side, and would split apart if he pulled at it a little. It wasn't an elevator, but Fugu doubted the process would make itself easy. The air lock began to open, letting out a bellowing sigh from behind. It was either the elevator he had hoped for or something far more sinister, and all things being equal he was in no curious mood. He jumped up and grabbed the low-dipping wire, tugging it gently to make sure it would be able to support his weight. His feet lifted on the ground and rose up to a small ledge that he could make out in the darkness inside. They hooked on to the edge and Fugu let go, his body swinging upside down freely in the tunnel. From the spaces between the slowly opening lock, he could make out a glowing energy. It wasn't an elevator, that much was certain. Two swings and his arms were at the height of his feet. Another, and he was almost in reach of a wire which looked to be much stronger. He threw himself off the platform and stretched, wrapping his hands around the wire (and still surprised it didn't cause him to ooze), his legs dangling down now somewhere inside the Sentinel just off from the center.

In front of him – further away from the tunnel – was a support beam. He swung his feet until they landed and locked his heels on the far side. The beam was wide enough that, as he let go and flew through the air backwards, he was able to keep the other edge of the platform locked in his knees. His arms dangled below him and found another surface that had been invisible to his eyes. The further in he searched, the darker it went. Hands identified a beam that felt identical to the one above him. He released his legs and held on to the beam as he went suddenly from upside down to rightside up. Fugu lifted himself to the platform, jumped to the one above him he had just left, and repeated the process. Now for some light.

As if on queue, an explosion erupted from the tunnel, screaming through the Sentinel and flying into the chamber. So it was an energy cannon. And clearly the Sentinel knew he was in here. There wasn't a lot he could do, except eject his own circuitry. Eventually such a fail safe got to be tiresome.

His nightvision now ruined by staring at the explosion, Fugu turned to the dark interior blind to the obstacle course that spread out in all directions around him. Taking another step was too risky; he slid down to that he straddled the beam and began to shimmy his way forward, from what he remembered, toward the back of the Sentinel. Arms waving wildly for another hold, another platform, another anything, he pushed on into the darkness.

_Gonna fucking eject your foot, you cocksucker! _Flicker's knife struck home as he left arm arced upward and came down on the top of the four-foot metallic boot. The Sentinel's remaining arm reached out and a hatch opened in its palm; a net was jettisoned from inside. Flicker wasn't playing this game. He ran around to the other side, far wide of the net as it landed, and searched for the electric cable he had dropped. His head flung around, eyes trying to bounce out of his skull (which took a certain energy he wasn't used to) until he saw it lying a few yards from the Grinder. It was just beneath the feet of Colossus' suspended corpse. Disconnected. _Motherfucking…is it worth it? To dig again? To try this all from the beginning? Fuck this shit! I'm FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF THIS! IT'S POINTLESS!_ He bent down and picked up the lifeless chord as the Sentinel approached from behind and took aim. _Is there even a point_?

"Whuu…Whuu…whuuhh…ehi ooo. Whuuuhhhh, ehi oooo."

Flicker looked up to see Colossus, eyes opened and dripping blood, staring down

at him as his chapped lips tried to form words. "Duhh….duh ge oh. Go. Go!" The pain in his voice almost moved Flicker to tears. He was one of the good ones. For a moment, the towering shadow behind him disappeared and it was just two mutants, two opposites in outlook and mindset and, inevitably, outcome. But they were two friends. Flicker rose to his feet to look Colossus in the eye one more time – he still had to crane his neck back. With two fingers, he reached out to close Colossus' eyelids. The Russian didn't have the strength to open them again.

"I'll go. For the both of us." He was one of the good ones. _Tit for tat_.

Rage built up inside, at the loss of his hand, at the loss of his friend, at James for promising a world of power and the chance to take revenge for his father's death at the hands of the Sentinels, at his lies, at himself for getting his hopes up, at his mother and sister for huddling in a corner as the Sentinels took him from the only world he understood. That rage overcame his guilt, his fear, his pain. It boiled over until he would either cry or destroy something. He chose the latter.

His feet carried him – he was no longer in control – towards the collapsed Sentinel arm. His left hand dug through the part that had once been connected to the machine, the fucking machine, it had to die, die, die. It had to die. He gutted it, not out of strategy but out of spite, the fucker! He ripped out the wires as though they were veins, squeezed the blood out of them, but the just kept coming out like a fucking magician's scarf.

He had an idea.

Flicker grabbed an end and ran over to Colossus' pillar. He hated to use this one, but it was well positioned, and there was certain symmetry in it.

"Help me out, pal. I know we didn't know each other too well, but I never wanted you to die." He began to run circles around the pillar, soon dodging energy bursts from the Sentinel. "James said you might, but I never wanted you to die. I never wanted you to die. I never wanted you to die." It became a mantra as he wrapped the wire around his friend's corpse, he wasn't even sure if he was communicating or just muttering under his breath. But the wire had to be tight.

Another pass around, but instead of curving back to Colossus' body he ran across the room to the facing column and started all over again. The Russian was certainly out of earshot but he kept mumbling, "I never wanted you to die," his eyes focused on the ground but not seeing anything, his feet stopping when necessary to avoid the Sentinel's attacks. Around and around. On one step he suddenly yanked backwards, his head spinning to the detached arm. The wire was all out. This was going to have to do.

Flicker ran away from the wire crossing the room, towards the back, towards the Grinder. He was running away. Rage was succumbing to panic, a battle that echoed inside and deafened him to the crash of 90 feet of metal into the ground.

Fugu was suspended horizontally, stomach facing the ground, his arms outstretched holding on to something that felt like another covered wire, the soles of his boots were flat against a wall. That much he knew. Where to go, what he was looking for, or even where he was inside the Sentinel he had no idea. But he was in no danger here unless the Sentinel decided to implode – always a possibility, but unlikely – and if it did, then he would figure out something else.

His feet searched along the wall for another path. Above him, his right heel found a corner. It was probably another platform. He left his other foot on the wall and used the right to feel around, pulling the wire he was holding closer to the wall. It wasn't a platform, it was just a small little metal...thing. Fugu couldn't imagine that it served any purpose. It was almost like chair rail molding in a 90 foot robot. _Makes sense_. He hitched one toe and then the other on it before letting go of the wire and falling face first into the wall. Horizontal to vertical was progress, even if he was upside-down. His hands became feet, walking him upwards, compressing him into a worm until they were almost at the height of his feet. _My back is going to hurt after this_. It was arched out as though a hairpin.

In one motion, his feet came flying off the ledge and over his body, falling back to the wall below him, as his hands stretched up and grabbed hold of the same molding. He used his arms to pull the rest of his body up so his feet were on the ledge again – only this time, the rest of his body was as well. He had been doing a lot of weird maneuvering like that in here, but it felt like he could turn a corner and see the tunnel he had come from. His lungs spasmed, and he let out one of his vile, nauseating coughs, the ones that made even him sick by the sound. When he pulled his hand away from his mouth there was something liquid on it, and it wasn't his own spit. Quickly, he raised his palm to his face and licked it off. Blood. He thought so.

He wiped off his hands and waved them above him, finding a wire leaving the wall back into the Sentinel. Fortunately, the designers of the Sentinels hadn't thought about someone on the inside, and had always left another path to go for him.

His hands groped in the darkness, one after another, hand over hand. Occasionally, as he followed the wire deeper into a dark void, his legs would hit something, soft wires that reminded him the Sentinel was not empty, hard platforms that reminded him he was still alive. But he kept going, wherever it was taking him. It had to lead to something. He had no sense of time, but he must've been inside for weeks at least.

Outside he heard a loud rumbling crash. It wasn't something dropping – it lasted too long to be that. The explosion rung through the inner chambers of the Sentinel for months, every time Fugu thought it had passed him it bounced back from another dark corner, the damned nymph Echo making well sure he heard whatever the hell it was going on out there. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a red light from deep inside, or maybe it wasn't so deep and he was? It was far, but it could've been something important. It was the only light he had seen in years. The path he was going wasn't heading in that direction – at least, not yet. _Jump ship? Jump where?_ He pressed forward with the rope walk. Two seconds later, the shit hit the fan.

Fugu's eyes were drawn to the small hole of light behind him before he noticed the _whiz_ of something screeching past. Another hole appeared far above him. Another in between. He could make out a buzzing outside – or was it a rattling? Shit.

"FLICKER!" His lungs rasped, phlegm shooting out of his mouth. More spots of light – bullet holes – kept appearing. He was going to ruin everything. "FLICKER, STOP! FLICKER YOU'RE GOING TO KILL ME." The wire snapped, sending him swinging through the electric jungle. Only his Tarzan cry was nothing brave, and much less kid-friendly.

"Shit shit shit shitshitshitshishishishishishishishishishishishishishishshshshshshshs

hshsssssssssssssshit!" Fugu cut it off when he saw the lights on the other side. They were getting closer. He lifted his feet and braced himself to bounce off. As soon as he had, those feet touched the far wall of the Sentinel and he went swinging back. The bullets continued to stream through the robot at an ever-increasing pace.

He could drop. Not a good idea. So as the cable swung back and forth through the Sentinel, with whatever was in their getting its scrapes and cuts in at the last possible chance, Fugu climbed. Somehow, as it seemed the wire was slowing down but the bullets were getting faster, it seemed that the wire came to rest only 20 or so feet immediately underneath the glowing red light.

It was close enough to the wall that, thanks to the bullet holes, not only could Fugu see what he was doing, he could see outside. Amazingly, they were moving, although Fugu couldn't tell from inside. He paused to see if the other Sentinel was still alive. A bullet grazed his shoulder, zipping away to some unknown corner, and without waiting for another, he continued his climb.

What he reached was a large red…_thing_, protected by some glass. It had to have a purpose, and Fugu was running out of both time and patience. He was turning into Flicker, what with his eagerness to just destroy things. What were the other options? Another bullet flew above his head. No other options. Just end this. He lifted his boot over the glowing red glass and dropped his heel into it.

"Ow!" He hopped away from the barely nicked glass, hopping on his right foot as his hands went to massage the shock that had ran up his left leg. Already his mind was working. _How? How. How. How._ He looked around for something to smash the glass with – nothing except more wires. His head shot back to the one above him. He could swing into the glass – which at this point he wasn't even sure _was_ glass – but it would have to be at such a speed that he could do more damage than what had just happened. Fugu's eyes set back as his mind kicked into overdrive.

By the time he was sitting on the platform he had already undone the laces on his shoe. He yanked it off and threw it down over the edge, only after letting go realizing that the laces would've worked just as well as his sock. Mentally cursing himself, he ripped off the sweaty and crusted sock from his foot and stood back up. He probably should've saved the boot, too. Two heels were better than one. _Too late for should'ves._ He jumped up to the wire and began what he hoped was the last climb in this damn thing.

There was nothing to hug, so he climbed hand over hand as fast as he could, dodging the bullets that were doing nothing except endangering himself and piercing a 90 foot piece of metal with holes that were smaller than a dime. He climbed until the red light was just a speck below him before he reached his right hand down to fish into his pocket for the sock. He threw it over the wire, grabbing it with both hands. Spinning himself around, Fugu just let himself fly.

He finished a climb that had taken him decades in milliseconds. Heel stretched out and aimed, he let go of the sock with one hand as it reached the platform and the beacon, crashing through the glass or whateverthehell it was, and the red light. A spark. _Just a spark_? The whole world started to groan. Time to make his escape.

"UNIT COMPROMISED" The noise seemed to rip his skull in two, coming from every corner of the Sentinel in stereo. It wanted to dig in and squeeze his eardrums until they burst. It wanted squish his eyeballs between two fingers. It wanted to draw blood instead of poison from every one of his pores. Fugu fell to his knees, grabbing his head in terror. But as soon as he had spoken, the Sentinel had stopped. And Flicker, it seems, had taken the hint. The bullets had stopped, and he could hear a faint voice.

"…u? Fugu? FUGU!"

"I'M IN HERE! GET ME OUT!"

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

"SHOOT THE BACK OUT!"

"OK!"

Rather than crumbling, or collapsing, or exploding, or any of the many other things Fugu had seen a Sentinel do, this one just…stood. Soon the bullets began far below him, trying to cut out a pattern.

"HIGHER, FLICKER!"

"OK!"

The holes drew a line up towards him, until Fugu felt they were getting dangerously close.

"THAT'S FINE. RIGHT THERE."

A crooked circle of metal popped inwards from the Sentinel's back. The cold florescent light was the most beautiful thing he had seen in centuries. Fugu hopped down to the hole and poked his head out to see Flicker, waving that damn hand of his.

"WANNA GET ME A ROPE?"

Flicker looked over his shoulders and shrugged.

"THE ONE BEHIND YOU? THAT'S WRAPPED AROUND THE COLUMNS?"

A look of epiphany came to his face and he ran to the pillars, cutting the rope at each end. One was wrapped around Piotr. What had happened here?

Flicker returned, spinning the rope around his head like a cowboy before tossing it up to Fugu. He caught it – not a rope, after all, but rather a wire – and motioned for Flicker to run back far enough to make it taut. He tied his end on a hook inside the Sentinel and pulled out the sock. One more trip through the air, and his feet touched ground. It had been a millennium since that had happened last.

Fugu turned to see the other Sentinel, crashed on the ground. "Are we finished?"

Flicker had a shit-eating grin on his face. "We're finished! Let's get the fuck out of here!"

Fugu put a hand on Flicker's shoulder to stop him from heading to the exit. "James?"

Flicker shook his head. "No show. I think the whole thing was some sick and twisted joke of his." He took off towards the entrance – the only door in this whole damn room.

"And then what?"

"Whaddya mean? We're home free!"

"Flicker, we're in a concentration camp. We're still collared. And if we go out that way we will be surrounded by thousands of green-switches in a matter of moments. So stop flying off the cuff and _think_ for a second. We didn't come this far to…"

Fugu's head whipped around to see the wall opposite the door crumble in a cloud of dust. Flicker began to run to it, but Fugu put his arm out to stop. They would wait to see who their new visitor was. They knew this battleground. If there was to be another fight, well, better the known than the unknown.

But the dust settled and nothing appeared. Flicker's feet were tapping happy, trying to take him through the hole in the wall and to whoknowswhere. Only nineteen and still as bullheaded as a five year old.Finally, when Fugu felt like whoever had blown the wall would not be entering, did he start to walk deliberately towards the hole.

"I'll go first." Fugu pushed Flicker back so that he could pass the threshold. _The gateway to freedom_, Flicker thought. Fugu's reaction changed from cautious to relieved in an instant as he peered to the left. The pain starting to return, Flicker hobbled over to missing wall chunk and saw, reclined against the other side, James Howlett, smoking a cigar.

"You son of a bitch! _You left us there to die?_" Flicker tried to grab for James with his right hand before remembering. It just pissed him off more.

James didn't even flinch or look in his direction.

"What the fuck is going on? You better explain, and explain fast!"

That invoked a reaction, at least. James raised an eyebrow. "I don't explain myself, 'bub. And neither does Apocalypse. So get used to it."

"_I lost my hand_! My left leg is about to fall off! And you want me to 'deal with it?' Fuck you, James! Fuck you and your fucking Apocalypse. I'm in so much pain my head is about to _explode_!"

Fugu remained quiet the entire time. James dug into his pant pocket and pulled out something. He began to walk down the lone hall that stretched before them, and Fugu followed. A few steps down he threw whatever he had pulled from his pants behind him to Flicker. It was a Ziploc bag? It looked like some kind of spice, or something inside?

Without looking back, he replied. "I trust you can still roll with one hand?"

_Motherfucking…arg!_ Flicker hobbled after them. _What other choice do I have?_

Monika Thalberg had, like many of the other miners, dropped her pickaxe after hearing explosions from the direction of the Grinder. Her gaze had been locked on the building since it had begun, and the greennecks watching them had run off like chickens without heads. Now they were coming back. It would be time to get to work. Blood was no doubt spilled in there today. But maybe, just maybe, the Ghost Rider and his little friend Pitch had made it out alive. She picked up her diamond axe – for only diamond could harvest Adamantium – and began to work.

"Bolivar Trask here."

"Trask, it's Guyrich. We have a problem."

"Guyrich? Jesus where are you? Creed has been looking for you the past two days."

"I'm checking in on our pets. Our Sentinels that were supposed to triumph over the mutant threat."

"So what's the problem?"

"They lost." Guyrich tried to navigate through the room that had once been called the Grinder for the large metal machine that turned mutants into fertilizer. There was one at every camp. Here, in New York City, their largest and most protected, guarded by the Master Mold himself, five mutants had managed to break free. "All I see are dead guards and destroyed Sentinels."

"What the hell happened up there?"

"I don't know. But I checked the records – none of them were miners."

"So then who cares if they get out?"

"Good point."

"What they don't know can't hurt us."

"Exactly."

"Speaking of, when is the next Adamantium shipment expected?"

"Two days tops. Probably more like one."

"Fantastic. Creed will be pleased."

"Where did you tell him I was?"

"What was I supposed to say? I told him I didn't know."

"Well, shit, Trask! Does he think I turned?"

"He probably suspects it."

"Fuck. He won't tolerate it. Listen, he can't know that we still have control of the Sentinels, do you understand?"

"I know that. You're the one taking risks."

Guyrich rolled his eyes. "Any word on that Zoe girl?"

"Plenty."

"What's the story?"

"Her real name is Chavah Eliashiv. She's Israeli Intelligence –"

"_Israeli?_"

"– and apparently a nut-job. We still don't know who she reports to, or what she was trying to do, but she's not getting off the island. That much we know."

"How can you be so sure?"

"We've sealed it off to all naval traffic. The only boats getting anywhere _near_ Genosha are our own."

"Great. Keep me posted. And if Creed asks, just _tell_ him I'm in New York?"

"You don't think he'll put two and two together?"

"At most he'll think my supplier is in New York. He'll feel smart. It'll get him to leave us alone for a while."

"Hurry back."

"I'll be back when I'm back." Guyrich snapped his cell phone closed and surveyed the wreckage. Time to go corpse digging.

Caliban kneeled at the step at recanted the words. "أتعهّد نفسي حتى النهاية من العالم" It was but seconds before Apocalypse appeared from his chamber below.

"WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR ME, CALIBAN."

"Your humble horseman Death has secured the two in New York. They are on the plane now. He would like me to tell him where your will shall take him next."

"I HAVE SENSED THE POWER OF MY FOURTH AND FINAL HORSEMAN EVEN FROM HERE DEEP BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE WORLD. SEND HIM TO THABAZIMBI. THERE HE SHALL DISCOVER THE ALL CONSUMING FIRES OF THE FAMINE."


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 –

Modimolle was certainly not Johannesburg, or even for that matter Sun City. There were none of the luxuries here of a five-star resort, or endless paved roads to walk and get lost in. In fact, there wasn't even a bench for her St. Yohn – or "Chon" as he called himself. He was relaxed against a tree – one of the things plentiful in Modimolle – and looking slightly bored. They had been at the market almost an hour, and there were only four carts – nuts, fish, grapes, oranges, hide, beef and cheese were all jumbled indistinguishably amongst them. Two were on one side of the dirty path, and two on the other, the owners eyeing each other as suspiciously as they did the customers. Of which there were six, Yohn and herself included. Sin-je hated Modimolle. It was born out of strife and hatred, _like most of South Africa_ she thought, but there was something more. An old death camp converted into a few shops and a place for farmers to sell left over harvest was bizarre. But what really got her was that it lacked both the isolation of her now-home Thabazimbi, about an hour drive west from here, and the bustling crowds of Jo-berg, about two and a half hours south. It had none of the joy of either place.

It was, however unfortunate, the only place to get food without it spoiling in the sweltering summer sun before they even got home. Yohn was still adjusting to that fact. They had only moved to Thabazimbi three months ago. Together they had made a nice life in Sun City, where they had first met just over a year ago. Thinking of it recalled the day they met, and suddenly the sweat on her lips lost its salt and tasted only sweet.

…_The Sun City resort was known throughout South Africa as the definition of Hollywood Glamour. This is where stars from around the world came to forget about the 'troubles' of fame. It was the best Sin-je had lived in her life. Her balcony overlooked a fabulous golf course, and although she didn't play golf, for a moment she wished she did. She wished she could be down there with the celebrities who passed through. She wished with a fervor that touched her sea-foam eyes that she _herself_ could just pass through. Not like she had been for the past, what, had it been ten years already? Not passing through out of necessity. Passing through for pleasure._

_Somehow, without a home, without a family, without a job, she had managed to put on a good show. Sin-je turned around to her king size bed, her TV that played American shows, her mini-bar, her electronic safe that didn't hold anything valuable because she didn't have anything valuable but it didn't matter because it was hers. Everything valuable she had lifted had been sold to others who were fully aware she had lifted it, but for whatever reason treasured a jewel bought with blood over a room with a view. Sin-je would take the view. _

_She tossed her head back and laughed with pure, innocent, unadulterated joy. Whether it was the sun of Sun City or simply her sudden and inexplicable happiness, her red hair seemed to catch fire and illuminate the room. But she didn't panic – she was learning now what the feeling was like when the curse took over, and this wasn't the symptom of evil; this was just a breath of elation. _

_Lying on her bed, the skimpy cerulean mesh two-piece she had just purchased down at the gift shop looked back at her, wanting to share in the celebration. For a moment, she believed that today was the perfect day – a new life, at least for a few months until somebody got suspicious, a new bathing suit, and great weather for a swim. _

_Sin-je was reluctant to shed the terry robe that had greeted her in the bathroom closet after her first shower in three weeks. There was a tub in there that she was yet to use, but that she had a sneaking suspicion she would get to know very well. But she undid the soft belt and let the robe gently grace her naked body as it shrugged off her shoulders to the floor in a heap of white. Maybe just one day in? No, she couldn't waste this beautiful weather. The two-piece went on easily, if not as lovingly as the full and enveloping robe. She strutted to the bathroom, already feeling sexy, to see herself in the mirror. Even she was stunned by her eyes; the color popped out at her reflection. Today was for celebration. Tomorrow, she would start to figure out how she could afford her new life. But today she wouldn't do a bit of work. A birthday gift to herself._

_Her birthday had actually been a month ago and some change, but she had been in Rustenburg at the time, which was about as entertaining as the name. And she hadn't been able to find a good heist, one that would do more than just buy her dinner for a week. Until word came of a recent archeological discovery a week later in Thlabane. Trespassing and spy maneuvers weren't really her style, but she was feeling frisky for a chance to get dirty. She had broken into the camp and stolen the artifact – a clay pipe, of all things – without a peep, and sold it to a man she knew before anyone had noticed it was stolen. Seventy thousand rand, and she was off for Sun City. The cash would last her about a week and a half here at least. Happy eighteenth._

_She took her keycard and left the room, about to head to the elevator when she saw the maid knocking on a door about four rooms down. Instinctively, Sin-je reached around the door and pulled off the "Do Not Disturb: Nee Klap" sign to put out. Hooking it around and double checking that the correct side was facing out, she shut the door and made her way towards the elevator bay, nodding to the maid as she passed._

_Even the elevator was nice, gold-rimmed mirrors framing her slender figure in fashion and cobalt. The music was American, and she wanted badly to hear more, to finish listening to the song, but the door opened with a ding to what she could only imagine was a mirage of an oasis. She stepped forward and pushed the small glass doors open, the warm air swirling around her and guiding her to the stacks of towels, to a secluded area of the pool underneath an umbrella where she deposited her key hidden under the towel, and finally into the refreshingly cool water. Heaven. Perfectly isolated heaven._

_Of course, it wasn't entirely isolated. There were a few other guests from the hotel lounging at the pool, all of them in separate corners of the patio area. Most of them were white and making a scene of not making a scene over her black skin floating carelessly in the crystal blue water. She chuckled inside; Sin-je was used to the way foreigners tried to pretend like they weren't racist, but it never ceased to amuse her how much they wanted so desperately to convince themselves. If any of them were really South African, they would've openly stared if not yelled at her to get out of the pool. Apartheid wasn't _that_ long ago. She may have been born after it had ended, but nothing ever ended overnight. But these people were all from out of the country, probably out of the continent – even the one other black woman who was sitting at a table, keeping shade under an umbrella, with papers spread in front of her and talking into a small microphone attached to her ear. _

_But only one of the guests really caught her attention. A mess of blonde hair over a wonderfully tan face that had obviously at one point been very pale. Deep, inset blue eyes behind round, thin-framed glasses, concentrating on what she was actually lusting after. A silver Toshiba laptop, tossing about the light around it in a display that outdid any gemstone she had ever lifted. Less than twenty-four hours in Sun City, and she had already found her next big lift. Sure, today was supposed to be a day without work. But Sin-je knew that these opportunities were too rare to pass for the sake of vacation. _

_Sin-je floated on her back, appearing to be a simple girl living simply, as her mind crunched numbers and calculated. If she went through with it, she wouldn't be able to even spend the night here – hotel staff would know where to look without question. But the laptop was probably a cool twenty thousand rand at least. Was twenty thousand worth one more city she could never return to? And where would she go after? She could afford Jo-berg, but that was out of the question; she had accidentally killed a boy there during a heist less than a year ago when the curse took control of her. He had been chasing her after a careless exit had gotten him out of bed to see why the window was open. Unfortunately for her, he had super-speed. He had approached cornered her in an alley, and stared at her with what Sin-je thought was admiration. She was only seventeen, and he could not have been older than her._

"_Why?"_

_Sin-je stared at him, astonished that he had asked a question rather than simply take back the small, unframed Picasso that he had made the mistake of showing his friends only three days prior. He would tell the aunt that had sent it to him in America, and suddenly every _**_poliesman_ **_in South Africa would be on her tail. Stupid American children always got protection._

"_Why did you take it?" he repeated. His green eyes studied her, curious as to her poverty, completely ignorant of the world around him. He was innocent, but he was still a threat. That's when it happened. Tiny particles of fire flooded around her body as her head tossed back and her jaw dropped. More red flakes seemed to float from her mouth like upside-down rain and joined in the orbit around her. Her head snapped back down, eyes glazed and blinded by the fire, as the shield that had formed condensed into a ball that rushed towards him. No matter how fast he was, he had no chance of escape. Horrified, she had run from Jo-berg and never looked back._

_She wasn't returning. Not any time soon._

_So that left Pretoria, and compared to Sun City, Pretoria had little to offer. So why risk it?..._

Why did she? It must have been some kind of _lot_ that she end up with Yohn. She glanced over at him and winked. He gave her the fatherly look he had managed to perfect in their time together. It was the "I know what you're up to and I don't approve but I'm not going to say anything until you actually do it so I can reprimand you later for it" look. Sin-je hated it. But anyone would've figured that an interracial couple with a car in Modimolle was up to no good, especially if they had been loitering for an hour now. So if Yohn already knew that she was here to borrow and not buy, even though he had plenty of money for them to buy all four carts and pay off the farmers to haul them all the way to Thabazimbi, then what did it matter? Part of it was for the thrill, part of it was to remember who she was. She was going to thieve, no matter what. So why stop her?...

…_The stranger pushed her up against the wall of his pool-view suite with his own body, his hands already fumbling at the back of her Sun City resort top. His head was burrowed into her neck, his golden hair caressing her cheeks and lips. She raised her head to let him go further, shuddering at the touch of his warm tongue on her skin, her shoulders arching back without her telling them to. His pelvis had her pinned and unable to escape, and she played along, grinding into him, her smooth and naked legs rubbing against the fade of his denim.. He had given up on the hook and simply pulled the straps over her shoulder, his mouth inching its way down her shoulder blade to her tit. Her back arched into him, pushing him on, forward, more. The grinding got heavier, and Sin-je reached around, putting her hands in his tight back pockets, shoving him into her even harder. Her nails dug deep with pleasure into the rough fabric, echoing her own goose bumps. She bent her head around and reached over for his sweat-salted neck with her own lips, first kissing then sucking then, as he worked her nipples, biting in ecstasy._

_She took her hands around to the front and slipped them between their bodies, the pressure causing her to lose focus on the stranger's neck and inhale his scent deeply and fully. Her fingers fumbled for the button, and then the zipper. His hands had wondered down to her thong as he slipped just two fingers behind the tight elastic band hugging her hips, inching their way down. She squirmed just a little and let out a tiny giggle – she was ticklish right there, and he noticed. He began to light rub her skin just below the faintest tan line she had developed today, as her hands lashed out to stop him. They grabbed his boxers exposed through his fly, and quickly his light touches became strong grabs and thrusts, the tickling becoming once more erotic. Her exhales had a slight whimper to them now as he returned to her neck, the blonde tassels now clouds that she could rest her head and dream on. _

_Abruptly, violently, he spun her around and threw her off of him, onto the king-size bed. His arms stretched to the ceiling as he took of his shirt, revealing a chest smattered with golden curls. Sin-je took the chance to finish removing her top and tossed it to the plush carpet, and as she looked back up he was standing over her, bare-chested, his pants slightly undone, and panting as hard as she must have been. His hands slowly but deliberately clasped down on her shoulders as he pushed her to her back and followed her down. Without her noticing, he had somehow slipped his hand in between their hips, and was working his way back down…_

Sin-je blushed slightly. She wasn't focused, and she needed to be. Already all the possible marks were eyeing her cautiously. There was one who looked like he didn't have much but a few rand, but he was the only one actually paying attention to the grapes. And a few rand would wet her appetite enough, for today. Besides, her mind was already floating on to what would happen once she and Yohn got back to Thabazimbi.

She leaned over to pick up a clearly rotted orange to pretend inspection as she 'accidently' bumped the man. It was a clean pick, and he simply turned to glare at her and the scuttle away unwise to the lightness of his pants. She had picked a bill fold with about 15 rand – enough to buy a bunch of grapes. Whatever, it was catch as catch can. She put the orange back, found a real one, and finished up her shopping. Suddenly there were two large arms on either side of her, hands planted firmly on the cart. She could feel a familiar breathing on her neck, and it brought her back to Sun City once again.

"Sin-je. We've been here an hour. Can we go home now?" Yohn had brought his face next to her so that his simple, almost-condescending words licked at her ear intimately. She didn't turn to look, but instead reached for a bunch of green grapes. Somewhere inside she was excited about the green grapes – they were harder to find in Modimolle than one would think. But her thoughts were pretty far from green grapes.

"I'm almost finished. Go wait for me." She pointed up the street where there were a few shacks that pretended to be stores and houses, clustered around the remains of the old death camp. There were even two tables outside of a place that served dirt road as coffee, with a few chairs. "If they ask you to leave, buy a klappertert for dessert tonight."

"You know I don't like coconut."

"You're right. I do know." She finally turned her head to meet his eyes. They weren't kidding. He let out a little chuckle and walked up the street, following the crotchety old man who had just lost his money.

The owner of that particular cart had no idea what had just happened; she could tell by his blank face that he didn't speak English. Not too many people out here did, because there weren't too many white people or foreigners or anybody hoping to do business outside of Modimolle here.

"Diô tšena," she handed him some rand from her other pocket that Yohn had given her to buy groceries and searched for some sort of bag to put them in. There was nothing in sight, and she hadn't though to bring her own container.

"Kgêtsi?" she asked, and the cart owner shook his head. Great. Yohn would have to wait for her to fetch him. She walked back, away from the cluster of shacks and the rickety carts, towards their car. It was something Japanese, but she never really paid any attention to cars. It had an engine and four wheels, and that was all she needed. She fumbled into her left pocket to dig for the key that Yohn had given her and pushed the little button, unlocking the door. It wasn't until she had placed the fruit and cheese and nuts that she had purchased that she realized – the rand she had stolen wasn't in her pocket.

She slammed the car door shut and stormed down the dirt path all the way into "Center Modimolle" – eight buildings, three of which were abandoned, extending from the intersection of two dirt roads. _The son of a bitch! He honestly thinks that he can just…the nerve!_ As she approached, Yohn noticed her out of the corner of his eye and looked up from his _Sunday Times_. He glanced over his shoulder at the old man who was sitting at the Only Other Table in Modimolle with his back to Yohn. She watched as he fished 15 rand – _her_ 15 rand – out of his pocket and then stood up to tap the man's shoulder.

"Excuse me, sir, but I believe that you just dropped this." Loudly, so Sin-je could hear. Oh he could be cruel when he wanted to.

The man's eyes squinted as his hand darted to the money before placing it back in his pocket. He fingered the pants to make sure there were no holes, but his gaze never left Yohn. Two years in this country and he still hadn't figured out the game here. But if he wanted to play games, she could play with the best of them.

Sin-je sat down at the table in the chair across from him, able to see Yohn – who had returned to his _Sunday Times_ – and the old man – who had not stopped staring, not especially after he caught a glimpse of a Black girl and a White man talking as equals across a table from each other. Pretending to be surprised, Yohn looked up from his paper that he wasn't really reading.

"Oh, hello love. Are you finished with your shopping?"

"I am. What's this?" She pointed to the pie sitting between them, covered in a wax foil to keep the heat in.

"The klappertert you wanted me to buy." Now he wasn't playing.

She hadn't even glanced down at it before she swatted it to the ground. "I hate coconut." She wasn't finished.

He suddenly caught on. "Stop it, you're making a scene."

"No _you're_ making a scene. You don't think that he's suspicious of you already?" She nodded her head towards the table behind Yohn. "He doesn't speak English. All he knows is you had something that you couldn't have gotten without digging into his pants. You wanna play low-key? Then stop running interference." Her voice was getting louder, angrier.

Yohn's voice was barely more than a whisper but boiling over with emotion. "Sin-je, stop crying, stop playing. You're finished? Let's go home."

She threw up her hands in frustration. "So I can't even have a discussion with my boyfriend in public, hey?"

She was getting to him. He was raising his voice. "I'm old enough to be your father. I don't want to be memorable, but if people see us…talking, cavorting at the market, they'll remember the foreigner's white face and his little trollop."

Sin-je turned her palm into blazing heat before leaning across the table and slapping him across the face. She knew he was used to fire. She didn't care. "Yohn, I have put up with some shit this past year but don't you_ ever_ talk to me like I'm your _property_." She spit the last word out on the pie on the ground. Yohn sat rubbing his cheek, staring back at her. The man had turned to stare at them. She was messing up and she knew it. "I don't know what you're running from –"

" – I didn't want to burden you with that –"

" – but unless you _tell_ me someday, I _can't_ know. You want to keep a low profile? Fine. Keep it without me." She stood to walk away, knowing that she wouldn't get far. She was just past the last building when Yohn ran up behind her and took her by the arm.

"Take a walk with me."

"I've already seen Modimolle a dozen times."

"There's always a new story to tell."

They walked, arm in arm, down the dirt paths that passed for streets she had walked on almost every day since beginning her life near here with Yohn. But this time was different, like he had promised.

It was he who first broke the silence. "I was born just outside of Sydney, in a small –"

" – I've heard this part, get to what you're running from."

He pulled his arm away from hers and looked down at her in fake disgust. He was loving every minute of it. So was she. "You can't just do that! That's like starting a book on Chapter 12 because you think you heard about the characters somewhere. Now where was I? I was born just outside of Sydney…"

He talked about his childhood, about his stint as a romance novelist, about learning of his 'gift' – he called it a 'gift', Sin-je called it a 'curse', but both had learned in their own time that the technical term was 'mutant' – and his ability to control fire. But then, he delved into something new.

"I was recruited by a woman named Raven to become part of a team of mutants. The Brotherhood, we were called. We fought for mutant recognition in the States, particularly in New York. Raven always said that if New York would fall, the rest of the world would follow suit. And we believed her. Me, Toad, Avalanche" – which when he said it sounded like 'Ah-vah-lahnche' – "and Mystique, as Raven chose to be called." Sin-je didn't understand the code name thing. Yohn had said that, once, he had gone by the name "Pyro". Why? "We thought we were working under the orders of the great Magneto – a mutant who fought for liberation everywhere. Only it turned out Raven was betraying him. Turns out, we had all been had. Magneto caught on that we were more terrorists than freedom fighters and made it one of his priorities to hunt us down."

"So that's why you're hiding?"

"Hang on, love. Magneto got his revenge. I spent thirteen years working off my crimes for him in Colombia, where he had relocated. Of course, I was just committing other crimes. I suppose even here you can appreciate borrowing from Paul to pay off Peter…"

"Huh? Who's Paul?"

Yohn shook his head. He wasn't talking sense. He was somewhere else. "Never mind. The point is, I survived Magneto. It was when, after paying off my debt and continuing to work for him anyways, a fleet of around twenty Sentinels attacked us." He pulled the paper from under his other arm and pointed to the front page. Large purple machines that looked like men, sickly people in collars – it was scary, but it was a world away to Sin-je. But it was very real to Yohn. He had stopped and turned her to face him, tears starting to form in his eyes.

"They come in the night and take people like us. They take them to camps. Death camps, worse than this." He spread his arms to take in all of Modimolle. It wasn't hard. "They take us to camps to kill us because we're different. Because people are afraid of us. People are afraid we're replacing them. And we are, but this isn't the way to solve the problem. _This_," his finger jabbed at the front-page, "this is genocide. Magneto was killed in the fight. I escaped. _This_ is what I'm running from. Thabazimbi is only so isolated. They'll find us here just as surely as if we were in New York City."

"But the Sentinels aren't _in_ Africa. I heard that practically every government had condemned the things, and threatened war if they crossed the ocean."

Yohn just sighed, exacerbated at her naïveté. It wasn't her fault: she had enough problems of her own that she chose not to take on the world's as well. "Do you remember that day that we left Sun City?"...

…_She had been right on that first day. The tub was to die for. Her hands ran through the mountains of bubbles, smoothing them on her exposed knees, pretending to play Cat's Cradle in the suds as the white just squished between her fingers. She had spent a full ten months with Yohn in his suite at Sun City – moving out of hers and into his only a week after that day by the pool. And in those months she had become intimately familiar with this tub. And with everything else that Yohn's money had to offer._

_They had room service when they weren't at the five-star restaurants in the area designed to cater to the famous. They would make the three hour drive to Jo-berg at least once a month for a night at the theater. The theater! It had never been Sin-je's thing, as during those times she had enough money for such an excursion she preferred to spend it relaxing in places such as this. But the theater was quickly growing on her. She had even seen an opera, and enjoyed it. Yohn was bringing her into his world, and what a wonderful world it was._

_The door slammed, and before she had a chance to be surprised, he called out for her._

_"Sin-je! Sin-je where are you?" He sounded panicked._

_"Yohn? I'm in the bathroom, is everything ok?" She had frozen, not sure if this was a 'I-am-so-angry-about-something-I-could-shout!' moment where she could stay in the tub and listen to him rant or 'This-is-serious-and-you-need-to-come-in-here' moment. She wasn't going to get out if she didn't have to._

_"Get out here. Pack up. We're leaving." Or, you know, door number three._

_Her hand was already on the towel and she was standing up to dry off. "What? What's going on, hey?"_

_"Just hurry up!" She heard slamming and rustling coming from the suite. This was serious._

_She wrapped the towel around her body and glanced at her hair in the mirror. It was going to be nappy if she didn't take care of it right away. But once she peeked her head around the corner and saw Yohn frantically rolling his Armani suit into a ball and shoving it on top of the gaudy Hawaiian shirts he had first brought to South Africa, she realized there were bigger problems than hair right now._

_Holding the towel around her at chest level with one hand and trying to squeeze the excess water from her long red hair with the other, she walked up to him. She didn't even think he noticed she had come out of the bathroom until she spoke._

_"Will you tell me what you're doing?"_

_"I'll explain on the way." His hands stopped over the half-filled, all-messy suitcase as he turned to look at her. "Are you going to pack or are you leaving with just the towel?" He went back to the closet and ripped more clothes off the hanger, mumbling under his breath. "Leave it to you to leave everything you actually _do_ own and only take something you've stolen." He had said it softly, and she knew she wasn't supposed to hear it. So she ignored it as part of him just stressing out – somehow he managed to win every argument even when he lost. She would get the last word, he would apologize, and then he would turn right around and do exactly what it was he apologized for doing the first time. And right now his body was so tense that maybe, just maybe, an argument would push him over the edge and things would end poorly for both of them. So what else could she do? She pulled out her duffle bag and began to pack._

_She had accumulated so many things over the time they had been together – ten months was only ten months, but it felt like she had known Yohn her entire life. There were the dresses for the theater, including the gorgeous burnt orange gown with green embroidered vines wrapped around the bodice that sprouted bright white lilies. Yohn had made her buy it the first time they had gone to Jo-berg together. She had been a fashionista ever since. _

_One by one, memories of the good life went into the one dirty bag she had brought with her to Sun City. In all of her shopping, she never thought to buy a decent set of luggage. Where was she going? Where _was_ she going, where was Yohn taking her? She decided to test the waters._

_"So where are we going, hey?" she whispered._

_"It doesn't matter just pack," he snapped back without dignifying her with a glance. They packed in silence for another fifteen minutes before Yohn spoke again._

_"It's taking too long, they'll be here by now. Grab your last minute things and we're going." His hand slipped around the bag, dragging the zipper with him._

_"Who's 'they'?"_

_"Do you want your stuff in the bathroom or not?"_

_"Yes!" She was frustrated almost to tears. She loved him, she truly did. But she also had no idea what was going on. And he wasn't making it any easier._

_"Then get them at let's go." He shrugged on his coat. Tears began to gloss her eyes over, but she knew he was serious. She ran to the bathroom and with her arm just scooped the compacts and eyeliners and mascara and lipstick and the brand new flatiron she just purchased last week all on top of her choice of clothing that she simply couldn't leave behind. Sin-je could already hear him opening the door._

_"C'mon, let's move!"_

_"Give me a second, Yohn, ok?"_

_"5"_

_"You son of a bitch!" She ran back to the suite, slipped on her flip-flops and picked the yellow beaded heels up from the floor, trying to make space in her bag for them._

_"4"_

_"I'm right here, can't you see that I'm trying to hurry!" One of the heels broke and she threw them to the ground. She broke with it, crumbling to the floor in tears. "I don't understand why you can't tell me what's going on!"_

_Yohn stared back at her, finally realizing what he had done too late. "Sin-je. Trust me. Trust the fact that I love you. If we don't leave in the next minute, we won't live another."_

_Her tears stopped running for just a moment as she turned to see him. His face had never been colder. Her breath was still choked, her stomach seizing, her eyes begging to cry again. He was deadly serious. This was the beginning of the end. She stood up, dusted herself off, and flung the bag over her shoulder. Quickly composing herself to a level of dignity necessary for this hotel, she walked out the door he was holding open for her, right past him without so much as flicking her eyes up to meet his._

_"Well, then, let's get this show on the road, hey?"_

_He didn't reply, but just closed the door and followed, wheeling his suitcase behind. If they were going to do this, _she_ was going to be in charge, damnit. It didn't last long; they met again at the elevator bay, waiting for their escape vehicle. Their eyes met, but it wasn't the passion play of the day by the pool. It was his stress and possible irritation that she was holding him back. It was her frustration and ignorance at the situation. Whatever it was, it wasn't sexy._

_They left out the front door and Yohn presented the ticket stub to the valet. He was tapping his foot impatiently on the sidewalk outside, under the canopy of Sun City's entrance. The gates to heaven. And they were leaving._

_The car came around and Yohn all but through his things into the back seat. The bellhop had opened the trunk, and so as not to embarrass him, Sin-je handed him the bag, even though it could fit easily next to Yohn's things. She had no idea what was going on, but within the forty minutes that this had taken of her life, she had already resigned herself to do whatever it was he was doing. But that didn't mean she was going to simply shrug appearances. She had grown up better than that._

_Yohn's voice pervaded the drive from Sun City. They weren't really going anywhere, they were just going. But it wasn't the talking Sin-je had hoped for. She wanted an explanation for why she had just left the lap of luxury, along with over a million rand in clothes and accessories. She wanted to know why the man she had come to love as easy and passionate and levelheaded was now so frightened. She wanted a reason for the past hour, but she never got one. What she got was Yohn, on the cell-phone with realtor after realtor, looking for a new place to live._

_"Yes my name is –"well, that part always changed. Yohn gave a lot of names. None of them were St. Yohn Allerdyce. That was something she was used to – she was known in a lot of places, but not as Sin-je Peyper. So he was running. So he wasn't as high and mighty and moralistic as he pretend to be. Something inside her smiled, but it wasn't that fulfilling. "I'm looking for a place that's isolated and available to move into today." That was easy; there were abandoned huts all over the place. "Price isn't an issue." It never was. "One bedroom is fine." If Yohn thought that she would be sleeping with him after this entire ordeal, he was more of an idiot than she thought. "Cash." Cash? Wow. Maybe she could just make this a 10-month grift. Cut her losses. "Thank you anyways." And then he'd hang up and the process would start all over again. She never told him that it was _because_ he was offering cash. People would be willing to sell you anything around here, but they didn't trust a man who could buy a house with cash – and was willing to announce in public that he was carrying that much. He was probably a horrible con artist, and as soon as the realtors put two and two together, the phones shut off._

_They had been driving almost two hours west from Sun City, and pretty soon would be in Botswana if he didn't turn around. She wasn't fleeing the country with him. So she made up the decision in her mind; at the border, she would tell him to drop her off at the curb, and she walk away. She would go back to living her life like she always had. It wasn't much, but every now and again she enjoyed herself. And it was better than following some stranger on a continental tour of Africa. The fact that she thought that set her back – stranger? She had been living with him for almost a year, and he was a stranger? She shrugged. He was now._

_She began to see road signs for cities that were no longer in South Africa, and braced herself for what she was going to say._

Yohn, you have two options: turn the car around, or I leave. _No. She shouldn't have to give him an ultimatum. She should be stronger. If he decided to cross the border, he should _know_ that that's the end_.

Yohn, let me off. We're done. And good luck in whatever the fuck you're doing. _Should she slam the door? Should she even curse? She didn't want him to _die_ or anything, but she wasn't exactly wishing him success in all of his future endeavors either. Was he going to move on? Find some other girl that's half his age in Botswana? Was this just his thing? Did he hop from country to country looking for year long companions? She had never stopped to ask him what he did for a living, how he came across so much money. He was white, and he was foreign, and that usually explained any questionable wealth. Should she have?_

And what happens when he pulls away without popping the trunk so I can get my things?

Yohn, pull over, I'm going to be sick.That way, he wouldn't know I'm leaving until it's too late. I can say I need something in the back, and then grab my bag and run. Or maybe kill him. He might be able to control fire, but he's not immune. And if he's not paying attention, I might have one good shot…

_"Thabazimbi? I can be there in….six hours. Are you sure it's already cleared out?" That brought her back to reality. She could see the guards at the border ahead on the road. Now that she had worked herself up, she was so close, she _wanted_ to leave. Should she just leave now? He hadn't crossed the border…not yet._

_"Sold. Thank you so much for your help." He craned his neck to check behind him, as though for a moment he thought that there would be anyone else this far out, before making a u-turn in the middle of the road. And then they began heading back the way they came. She wasn't going to break the silence. He could make the first move if he gave a shit anymore._

_"We're moving to Thabazimbi. I've heard it's gorgeous."_

_She was curled up against the window, as far away from his as possible. "It's empty." She murmured. It didn't get a response from him, so she raised her voice. "You thought Sun City was just a resort and baboons? Thabazimbi doesn't have a resort. And the baboons are more vicious."_

_"Well the view is supposed to be spectacular. All the space that you could ever want." Why on earth was he trying to put a positive spin on this like nothing had happened? Like they hadn't talked for hours. Like everything was going to be OK?_

_"That's because you have to drive an hour to get food, and another hour to fuel your car. Which you'll be doing every day, living in Thabazimbi."_

_"We won't be leaving that much, love." He put his hand on her knee and gave her a little shake. "After all, isolation has its benefits." Was he trying to be sexy?_

_She threw his hand off of her knee. "Look, I'm coming with you, ok?" She was? When did she make that decision? "But right now, I need you to shut the fuck up and leave me alone, hey?"_

_Yohn honestly looked hurt. Like he didn't know it was coming. The bastard had the prettiest blue puppy-dog eyes. But she didn't break that easily. The rest of the trip was silent, save the attempt Yohn made to play the radio. Five minutes later, Sin-je had turned it off. She had a headache now, from crying, from packing, from everything. What a waste of a day. She was supposed to be doing her hair right now. Or at the very least, getting an explanation. They moved in, they slept, they made up in the morning, they started new lives in a place untouched by civilization. But she never got that simple explanation she deserved…_

"Yes," she replied, although her thoughts had turned sour. It was something she had forgiven him for months ago, even if he had never asked for it, even if he had never apologized. Because that's what they did. Pissed each other off and then pretended like it never happened, in the hopes that one would realize that things were better than they were worse, and the world would keep on turning. But they never dug up old war wounds.

"I'm sure you remember that my cellular phone had broken, and that once in Thabazimbi I had to drive all the way back to Johannesburg to replace it?"

Sin-je just nodded.

"I was out trying to replace it that day. When I got back to the hotel, I saw a man standing at a counter that I thought I remembered from my previous life, only I didn't make anything of it. Until I heard him ask the concierge if there were any people staying in the hotel with unusual gifts, curses, abilities, talents, things of that sort. Then I placed him. Cameron Hodge."

"Who?"

"Hodge is the former Vice Chancellor of Genosha, after Magneto lost the island to a bunch of anti-mutant zealots. I've always wondered who was behind the Sentinel program. I mean, really, S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't do this on their own. Everything just…clicked. The Genoshans are somehow connected to this global crisis. And somehow, Hodge himself had tracked me to South Africa."

"What if they were just looking around for mutants in general?" Sin-je asked.

"In Sun City? This man is far too important to be snooping around particular hotels. Besides, he and I have…history."

"What kind of history?"

"Don't worry about that –"

Her eyes flared up. "Don't pull that shit with me, Yohn! You agreed to tell me everything. So tell!"

He looked down at her and paused. She struggled to make her face calm but stern, the image of maturity that he always seemed to be. She could handle whatever he threw at her. He just had to believe it.

"Have you ever heard of the Phalanx?"

She stared at him quizzically. "Like the one in Egypt?"

"Phalanx, not Sphinx. I'll take that as a no. How can I explain this?" He paused, his eyes tilted to the back of his head as if trying to explain to a child his parents just died. She was starting to get sick of always feeling like a kid. "Hodge was part of an experiment. A techno-organic virus, so it was alive, but it was machine as well. It was supposed to assimilate _everything_. It controlled human lives and buildings. The idea was to out-evolve mutants. Hodge was the first to be assimilated.

He discovered quickly that mutants had some sort of immunity to the virus, so he simply kidnapped hundreds at a time while he researched how to assimilate them. He finally found a way, and one by one the mutants were killed. Thankfully, a group of mutants called the X-Men in the US stepped in and stopped Hodge. He survived, but those that had fallen had really fallen.

But remember, Hodge is radical-humanist. He believes in the preservation of _homo sapiens_ as though we are not human. To make sure that he didn't go crazy, he hired Dr. Lang, co-creator of the Sentinels, to help him. Only at that point, Dr. Lang had been dead for years. My dear friend Raven the shapeshifter decided to play Dr. Lang in Hodge's little game, until the Phalanx grew out of her control and she fled."

He paused, and Sin-je's mind melted a little. Phalanx? X-Men? Techno-orgo_what_? It all had just congealed into some weird story from outer-space. And she still didn't get the point.

"I don't…what?"

"Raven told two other people how she manipulating the Phalanx so that she could keep it in check. One was Destiny, her live-in-girlfriend. The other was yours truly. Hodge wants to use the Phalanx again I _know_ it. And it has something to do with the Sentinels. He wants me to supervise –"

"Then just tell him no!"

"I don't think he's going to _ask_ me, love. I think it's more of a gun-to-my-head type of situation. And if he found you, and had no use for you…you'd be joining them." He motioned to the image of sickly collared mutants on the paper, marching single-file amidst barbed wire, guards with guns, and large robots. The Sentinels.

"So this _does_ have something to do with us now…huh." She wished for just a moment that she had read the articles, that she had tried to understand when Yohn talked about the dangers across the ocean. But now she was listening. And she was ready to do something. Anger built up inside of her. She had left Sun City because of this _Hodge_ and his stupid _toy robots_? Because of some virus that he had made how many years ago? It didn't make a lot of sense, but now she had someone to blame. That was all she needed. "So let's do something about it."

Yohn just shook his head, the breath escaping his nose in spurts hinting that he just might be amused. "You can't fight this, Sin-je. You can only run. Even Thabazimbi will only last so long. So we make the most of it, until next time, when we really _do_ have to go to Botswana. Come on, let's get back to the car. I'm sure everything you bought is just becoming tastier and tastier sealed away in that air-tight sauna with the sun beating down on it." He put his arm around her shoulders and guided her to down the street. Something made her think that this time, she'd be willing to cross the border.

When Fabian Cortez had sworn his allegiance to the lord Apocalypse, he knew that doing so would entitle him to certain fringe benefits, not the least of which was the restoration of his powers. He had lost his ability to manipulate the mutant powers of others back in the Ontario concentration camp where he had been locked away for two months. Two months! He shuddered as thoughts of the disgusting quarters flooded his mind. And of the collar.

It seemed a logical attempt at the time – the collar was somehow using a mutant power to neutralize mutant powers. It had to be the only explanation. And while Cortez could not amplify or diminish other mutant powers, maybe he could investigate the one being used on him. There was so much about his own power he didn't know. Would it work on humans? Could he completely take away another mutant's power? This was just another chance to experiment.

The result backfired, his own power intermingling with the collar until both were cancelled out. The collar popped off of his neck as he crumbled to the floor, ready to take his own life. He had lost that sweet sensation of control, and now…now he was _sapien_. But Apocalypse had changed all that. His powers were back. He was no longer under the servitude of that traitor to the mutant cause, Magneto. And he was sipping an Imoya Cheetah – Vodka, Brandy, and Triple Sec with orange juice over ice. He had never been a fruity drink person until he got to Africa, where he never anticipated October to be so hot. It was June, which unfortunately didn't mean winter in this desert heat, and he had found no better cure for waiting around than tart alcohol on ice.

He had been sent to this backwater country to find a girl, someone that Apocalypse wanted to recruit as a horseman. It didn't really make sense; there was Cortez, himself. There was Sinister, who had been captured by the Sentinels last he heard. If Apocalypse really wanted he could have rescued Sinister any day. And there was Caliban. Cortez didn't really _like_ Caliban, but he was apt at raising a mutant army with his ability to detect mutants in the area. So he had his uses. And the role of Death had already been cast. Three slots, three allies. Why was Apocalypse still looking for horsemen?

But whatever Apocalypse needed to keep Cortez living the life of luxury. Looking for this Black or Coloured or whatever they called them here. And there was no trace of her – even better.

His cell phone rang. There were only a few people that knew this number, and anyone calling couldn't be a good sign.

He flipped open the top. "Cortez."

"You have failed your mission."

"_Excuse me?_" Caliban had a lot of nerve calling and speaking to him that way.

"Sin-je Peyper is currently in Thabazimbi, hours away from your location. Death is on his way over there. You will rendezvous at the base of the Ysterberg mountain, where Death's plane will be awaiting you. You are to board the plane and wait for your return to Cairo. You may not speak at any time with Gryphon or Fulton at any time during the plane ride. You are not, under any circumstances, to go with Death to the house or come into any contact with Allerdyce. You are not to come into any contact with Peyper until she joins you on the plane, and at that time you are not to speak to her. Do I make myself clear?"

"First of all, _Caliban_, I don't know where you get off –"

"Oh, and Cortez?" He interrupted, and then immediately paused. "I would prepare a good reason as to why you failed to notice Sin-je's escape with Allerdyce _three months ago_. Rendezvous is in seventeen hours. I suggest you think about what you're going to pack." And immediately, the phone went dead. _Fucker!_

His head went back with the glass as Cortez tried to drain the last of the brandy from the snifter. Sure Caliban was a bitch, but he had other problems right now, like the fact that he _had_ failed Apocalypse. So he had plans and excuse to make, and seventeen hours to do it in.

The silence this time was beautiful. There was none of the awkwardness, none of the anger. It was a silence because nothing needed to be said. It was a silence that existed above and beyond words, one that would be killed by any attempts at communication besides their occasional glances and the play of their hands gently resting on the emergency break.

Of course, Yohn had to kill it.

"I'm sorry."

That came out of left field. The fight today wasn't _that_ bad, they had had plenty worse. And there was never any apology afterwards. So what the hell was this?

"Yohn, it's…"Sin-je was quiet for a while. Had she just…won?

Cameron Hodge plopped down into his chair after the daily search for the intruder. This "Zoe" was causing too much of a headache for anything she could've learned in her short stint with the Friends. Graydon Creed was using all of his available guards to search the island for her, but he had made Hodge go out every day as well. Sure, she was supposed to be fast. But Hodge's cybernetics were faster. They had been searching for four days now; she was dead or drowned. Nothing else to it at this point.

In a reflection off of a picture of his vacation to Colombia, Hodge saw Guyrich walking down the hall. He spun his chair around and all but flung himself into the hallway.

"Guyrich! Where have you been?"

The man spun around on his heels. Talking to Guyrich always annoyed the hell out of Hodge. Thanks to the thick, reflective glasses that Guyrich always wore, he could never read the man's eyes. Just like now. Two dead mirrors reflected Hodge's own impatience, and perhaps a bit of Guyrich's.

"I'm sorry, I missed the part where you start running this operation."

"Creed has had a fire up my ass for the past thirty-six hours because of you! You owe me an explanation!"

"I was in New York, meeting a supplier."

"For Albert? How's the project going? And why does Creed even want me here? What help could I possibly be?"

Guyrich smiled, but Hodge couldn't tell if it reached his eyes. He ignored the question.

"Albert will be finished as soon as we receive the last of the adamantium. Any other questions?" He turned to leave, but Hodge had already connected the dots.

"You mean that the concentration camps aren't randomly placed? Toronto. Alberta. Anchorage. New York City. Des Moines. Little Rock. San Diego. All of them in the past 5 years have been discovered to be sitting on top of huge deposits of valuable metals. We never lost control of the Sentinels! We're using the mutants to harvest materials that make the Sentinels stronger! They're working to their own death! Guyrich, you're a genius!"

The smile had faded from Guyrich's face as he approached Hodge. "Listen to me, _very_ carefully." His voice was barely above a whisper. "The only ones that know about this are me and Trask, and I guess you now."

"Creed doesn't know!"

"Nor will he learn from _you. _Pierce doesn't know either. Keep it quiet, or you'll be killed. End of story." He turned to leave again, but this time it was a mistake. He should've learned that Hodge was now in the perfect bargaining position.

"Tell me why I'm here and I won't tell a soul."

Guyrich's eyes flared up before the smile returned. He tapped on Hodge's metal shoulder. "This. This my dear friend." This time his turn was full and he began to walk down the hallway, heels clicking behind. He kept walking, talking to the wall. "Or whatever is left of the Phalanx in you."

So, that was it. Simple enough. If Albert was supposed to be a mechanical replication of Logan, then they would need a genetic imprint. And back when Logan was still with the X-Men, still went by the name 'Wolverine', and back when Hodge was part of the Phalanx, the two had met. And Hodge had assimilated Logan. Apparently, Graydon Creed wanted the residue.

He sat back down in his chair, anxious to get _some_ work done before the day was through. His desktop background brought a weird sense of serenity to him. It was a picture of a sunset over Zwingly, in South Africa. He had never visited the country – he had found the picture online just looking for sunsets – but it had always calmed him down when he got worked up. It forced him to look at the positives. He was working with the Friends of Humanity which still had control of the ultimate mutant-killing machines that had all but taken over the United States. He was an integral part of constructing a machine that would once and for all kill Logan. And he had been promised control of the African operation once it started, which meant he would finally get to travel to see his sunset over bloodied fields of freaks.

Sin-je kicked off her sandals as she entered the house, running around the banister into the kitchen. She threw the few groceries that would never make a meal onto a table and quickly turned around to Yohn, who had followed her and already slipped his hands on her waist. Their faces pressed together as his tongue slipped past her lips. It was never like their first day of sex, when they had met by the pool, he didn't explore her body with his mouth. He already _knew_, and his professionalism was that much hotter.

His tongue met hers deep in the back of her throat, finding all the spots that made her body ache in pleasure. His five o'clock shadow brushed against her cheeks and lips, his strength taking her entire body. Her mouth bit down on his bottom lip and she sucked it in a vacuum, tugging harder as his hands found their way up her shirt and scaled up her back. Sometimes she knew what he liked, and went for it, just to please him. Most of the time, like now, it was purely reaction and instinctual.

She felt her bra come undone as she ran her hands up his silky back, her palms grabbing his flesh. Suddenly, he jerked away and grabbed her arm forcefully, racing to the bedroom. She had to run to keep from falling to the floor and having him drag her the rest of the way. Her bra fell to the floor, but she ignored it. Their bedroom was modest, not Sun City, but decorations and furniture (besides the bed) didn't register with Sin-je at that moment.

Yohn landed on the bed first, pulling Sin-je down on top of him. Before she landed, she put her hands between their bodies, going to work on the buttons of his shirt. He threw his arms back, and for just a moment, let her breathe, let her please him. She fished the shirt out of his pants and flung it open, revealing his chest, glistening from being out all day. It was perfect. Slowly, in a very measured crawl, her lips started from just above the belly button and worked their way up, touching each and every one of his erogenous spots. She stopped at each nipple, flicking her tongue back and forth, adding just a little bit of heat to it (something she had discovered on her own), watching his smile turn to a grin to an open mouth of ecstasy. His arms had come down from behind his head to her back, skimming down the neck of her shirt and rubbing her raw. She brought her legs up so that she was kneeling, straddled across his body, and Yohn immediately picked up on her new position. He began to thrust upwards, she downwards, a contact that refused to be broken, one that could _always_ be tighter. They forced their clothed bodies into each other, the pressure intensing with every move.

She all but lunged for his neck, her lips trying desperately to drink the blood from his veins. He grunted, a pentup exhale that had just a bit of a tone to it, a rumble from his chest that rose up to meet her breasts, now covered only by a thin tee-shirt. Driven by his audible pleasure, she dug further, her closed eyelids resting on that wonderful stubble that edged his jaw line, the rest of her face buried in the crevice of his neck, her tongue out stretched, intent on drilling a hole to the other side. She felt his left hand slowly run down her side, until it was between them, fishing its way down her pants. The sudden shock sent her into a frenzy, her hips pushing down on Yohn until she thought he might actually go through the bed. Her hands wrapped and slipped under his head, pulling him up and taking him in, their kiss intensified by the heat she created, by the heat that he brought out of her, stole from deep down inside her with just three fingers. They tugged at each other, each trying to drain everything from the other, until finally she ripped him away and threw his head down, forcing him by his shoulders to stay on the pillow as she hovered over him. She exhaled, wisps of smoke rising from her mouth to the ceiling to watch just how this passion would play out. Reaching her right arm behind her, she blindly undid Yohn's button and yanked backwards on the zipper, fishing him out of red plaid boxers.

His eyes, which had been half-open with pleasure, suddenly bugged out as he tried to sit up. "That _burns_."

"So?"she smirked.

"So I need that for later."

The hanging smoke swirled above in laughter as Yohn settled back onto the pillow, his eyes closed in pleasure. His hands rubbed against her thighs, the friction igniting a fire she never intended to light. This was nice, but Sin-je needed more. She rose up on her knees as Yohn reached over to unbutton her pants and slip them down as far as his own body would allow, taking a thong that he had purchased for her in Jo-berg with him in one quick tug. She adjusted herself and sat back down, very slowly, very gently, watching as Yohn's eyes rolled back in his eyes. More smoke escaped from where their two bodies had joined, only this wisp tried to stay grounded, tried to stay, to become a part of what the two of them shared. But all it could do was watch, just the same.

Had there been anyone living in Thabazimbi at all besides the two of them, they would have heard Sin-je's screams of ecstasy. But since the closest house was down a mountain and over an hour drive away, she didn't worry about waking the neighbors. Gasping, panting, screaming, tiny drops of lava beading off her body like sweat and decorating Yohn's glistening, polished body like wax beading up from a candle, Sin-je realized that this wasn't makeup sex for the fight they had in Modimolle today; it had been buried for three months, buried inside both of them, since the day they had fled Sun City.

Sun City had been isolated, plopped in the middle of nowhere so that foreigners of wealth could enjoy a getaway. This – _this_ – was just ridiculous. Cortez had absolutely no idea if he was on the right road, or even if he was still in South Africa. There were no road signs, nothing that shouted "This Way To Thabazimbi" – he recounted that; there might have been, but he certainly did bother to learn Afrikaans or any of the other Black languages they had here. There were no landmarks, on his map or on the dirt road he had been traveling for two hours already. And he was late. But could they blame him? This place was so far beyond backwater it drowned in rotted, long abandoned fields and baboon shit. Surely Apocalypse would understand.

But Cortez wasn't occupied with Apocalypse at the moment, although he should've been. He was legitimately worried about what Death would say when he reached the plane, a foolish consideration he knew, but still. It was a confrontation he was not looking forward to. Apocalypse had never really done a good job of establishing a hierarchy, and so his followers tended to assume a power that they didn't have. There was an unspoken rule that those 'in the know' who had more information from Apocalypse than the rest typically stood closer to his side, and higher above the rest. Unfortunately, even after pledging to serve the Great Lord time and time again, Cortez often found himself at the bottom of that totem pole. Such an informal ranking had been necessary to establish who listened to whom, but it had gone to Caliban's head; the man had become inflated with arrogance simply because he was kept like a pet in Cairo and often played messenger as a result. Someone would have to teach him a lesson.

So even though Cortez was leaps and bounds above a simple Horseman, he couldn't help but feel that maybe Death had picked up on the divisions among Apocalypse's servants and though himself above it all. _Perhaps if Sinister, Caliban, and I had titles…_

Directly in front of him yet another mountain appeared in the horizon. Without directions, signs, or any understanding of where in the continent of Africa he was, Cortez had resorted to driving around the base of every mountain he came across to search for Death's plane before continuing down that same dirt road. It was why, twenty-three hours after Caliban's call, he still hadn't found the fucking thing. This would be number four. Cortez's skin crawled with frustration.

He spent another hour driving towards the mountain before he saw the plane, landed in some random field. Dawn had just broken less than an hour ago, and now the large jet black plane absorbed the sunlight that had nothing else in this barren expanse to focus on. He glanced down at the clock on his dashboard and expected to see "DO:OM" or some such spelled out instead of the "6:54" Ok. So he was supposed to be there closer to midnight. Cortez may have been the last to know everything, but there was a very particular reason that Apocalypse kept him around: his ability to sustain the energy of another mutant made Cortez a lot of things, not one of them being expendable. And if Apocalypse wanted to use his pet in the near future, there was only one mutant alive who could help. In Cortez's book, that meant that he had certain liberties. One of those was being seven hours late.

Another was a position over Death, one-time star of the X-Men or not. And to demonstrate just how important he was, Cortez nonchalantly climbed out of the car and sauntered back to the trunk, where he slowly gathered in his only bag, as though he were right on time. To make the point clear, he paused behind the trunk, dusted himself off (even though he was not dusty), pulled out a compact to check his hair (even though he had seen it in the rear view mirror just a minute ago, and it was fine), and then finally slammed the trunk down with authority. Hopefully, Death had caught that and was tripping over himself trying to think of what to say. Cortez walked towards the stairs, which were already down on the ground, and dropped his bag on the ground for Death to come pick up. Ascending, he let the heels of his shoes resonate as loud as he could on the metal.

The plane, beyond the cockpit, lacked any real seats. Instead, two benches lined each wall, with seatbelts positioned less than the width of any one person apart. Each bench was currently occupied, each by a man Cortez had never seen before, but he knew to be the new horseman. Caliban had identified them as Fulton and Gryphon, but Caliban also had a knack for intentionally not providing anything useful. Which was which? What could they do? One was asleep, so it seemed he would have his chance to learn something, at least.

Cortez turned to the other, a ghostly pale creature that must have been dug up from the sewers. Everything about him was blank – his skin, his eyes, his scalp. It was disturbing. _Where is Apocalypse _finding_ these people?_

"Go get my bag, it's down there."

The man just stared back, sitting cross legged on the near bench yet somehow still managing condescension.

"Do it!" Cortez thrust his arm down the stairs to show the man where it was, just in case the…_thing_…didn't understand him. He had a sudden thought. He didn't know whether or not Sin-je spoke English. Would the rest of the Horsemen be just as impossible to give orders to? Cortez rolled his eyes – this day was not going to get any better.

It was at that moment that Cortez first noticed that Death was nowhere to be seen.

The man finally spoke up. "If you're the last Horseman, I'm having James take me back to New York." So. It talked.

"You sniveling idiot, I've been working for Apocalypse since before you'd even heard of him." Cortez didn't know if that was entirely true. Cortez hadn't been with Apocalypse too terribly long, and while he had certainly never seen this creature, he very well could've been part of Xavier's little ragtag team. Well, then they would have a nice reunion then. "What you need to know is that I'm above you, and above _James_," the familiarity sickened him, "and I'm ordering you to get my bag!" _Careful, Cortez. Don't throw a tantrum._

The creature suddenly smiled and stood up. What was going on? "Of course, sir. My name is Fugu." He stuck out a hand. _Fugu? Was that Gryphon or Fulton?_ After an awkwardly-long handshake, "Fugu" went down the stairs to retrieve his bag as Cortez fished in his pocket for an antibacterial wipe. Before he could, the room started to spin. _Have we taken off? _His stomach did turns inside of him before he realized he was going to puke. He took of sprinting towards the back of the plane and locked himself in the bathroom. _Where did this come from!_

Death had stopped scaling the mountain with his claws the moment he caught the scent of gasoline. Instinct told him that there was only one car up here. He took to his feet and followed the road, and, when that disappeared, followed the grassland. Even up here, miles above the ground, there were plains. Dried out grass as tall as he was where no one had tread in years. Luckily, the target had cleared a path. He continued his walk as the sun rose to greet him.

The wind had been bringing him scents, mostly of car fumes, but other undistinguishable things as well. Finally, after another half an hour of walking, he figured out what had been tugging at the back of his mind – it was Pyro. The memories weren't all there, something about two groups of mutants, a whole slew of battles that mixed in his mind. Did he hate this man? He didn't remember much, but he could picture Pyro's face clearly. Surrounded in flames – his power, yea, that made sense. And his name – St. John Allerdyce. But everything before Apocalypse was a blur, something that he knew he lived but didn't know what it was, or whether or not it mattered. He remembered not remembering, so this must have happened before. And Death knew enough of himself to not worry about a stupid thing like the past.

Despite his progress, the nothing had changed; the trees were in the same place, the animals hadn't moved, the same dry and stagnant heat still suffocated his skin. Until suddenly, a shack appeared far ahead of him, with smoke coming out of it. _Not funny Johnny. The girl's got better places to be than under you_.

He quickened his pace as he approached the house. Sometimes he would forget that this last Horseman was actually a Horsewoman. It was going to be weird, having a chick on the team. And yet something told him he had done it before. He came close to what he now saw was a shack and sniffed the air – she was here. So was Pyro.

He walked up to a door – _the_ door, he figured. This building didn't look like it needed two exits – and knocked. It swung open.

"Hello, Pyro"

The man in the door chuckled. "It's been years since I've gone by that name, Wolverine. Or is it Logan? Or James? I heard you just recently discovered that name, congratulations that takes you up to what – ten aliases? Eleven? I've only got two, how 'bout…"

"Cut the crap, Pyro, I'm not here for you." _Should I be?_ "I'm here for the girl."

Suddenly the other man reeked of fear. He was on his guard. And he wasn't stupid. Slowly, no doubt to buy time, he looked Death up and down. "How do you know about Claire." It wasn't a question. It didn't need to be.

"Enough to know her name isn't Claire. Now," the sound of metal on metal all so familiar to him rang through the deserted city as he unsheathed his claws, "move or be moved."

Pyro didn't move, didn't even flinch. Instead, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, putting one in his mouth and reaching for his lighter. "Oh, where are my manners. Smoke?" He pushed the pack in Death's face.

Death raised a fist and skewered the pack, cigarettes racing to the ground.

"Guess not." He finished fishing out his lighter and lit his own cigarette. Just before putting it out, Death thought he saw the flame turn into the shape of a knife, but just as suddenly, it was back in Pyro's pocket. Right, controlling flame. How could he forget? "I'm sorry, but there's nobody here, furball. I suggest you leave."

He turned to shut the door, but Death stuck out a hand to keep it open.

"Last chance, Johnny-boy. Or else I walk in over your three-puncture corpse. And leave with the girl."

Sin-je stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel. Before she could even towel herself off she heard Yohn's voice. He was talking with someone – at the door? If anyone traveled this far, they were definitely here for a reason.

She opened the bathroom door just a crack; from here she could see through the kitchen and into the living room. Yohn's left shoulder was just visible; even with this view, it was obvious that his posture was very tense.

An unfamiliar voice-- deep, gruff, and dripping with anger, "Last chance, Johnny-boy. Or else I walk in over your three-puncture corpse. And leave with the girl."

Shit. Sin-je leapt from the bathroom before she could think. "Yohn!" He turned just enough for her to send a solid blast of fire into what would have been the midsection of a taller man, but on the stranger was the center of his chest. The man went flying several feet, and Sin-je, wild-eyed, stared at the empty doorway, arm outstretched, before gathering enough wits to utter, "Who the fuck was that, hey!"

Yohn slammed the door shut, pushing Sin-je back to the bedroom. "I'll tell you later. Now get dressed; hurry. We don't have much time before he wakes up." Not again. It was happening again. _How much more running? How long before we can just _stop

Sin-je stared at him. "It's the same shit all over again, isn't it? Was that Hodge!" she said as she threw on a mesh tank and some shorts.

Yohn tossed her a pair of sandals and lit a cigarette. "We can talk about it later." She could almost hear "if there is a later" finishing off his sentence.

"I like your fire, kid." The stranger stood in the doorway, arms braced against the sides of the doorframe. She had hit him square and clean, he shouldn't be conscious, and _free of any burns? _But there he was, whole, his shirt singed, and smiling. "No pun intended."

Sin-je threw her sandals to the ground, and the air around her began to waver. "Great, 'cause I've got plenty more."

The stranger laughed-- a short, rough sound. He turned to Yohn. "All your girlfriends this bitchy?"

She turned to see Yohn's eye's flaring up as the fire from his cigarette began to reach toward the stranger's neck. It was taking the shape of a hand. "Don't you _dare_ talk to her like that, Wolverine, or you'll be turned into bacon two-thousand miles above us." So, not Hodge. Then who? The hand was molding into a forklift. This could get interesting.

"Any time, Johnny-boy!" Wolverine was already in the air, about to tackle Yohn. Then she noticed the claws. Without thinking, another ball of fire coalesced around her and sent the shorter man flying into the wall.

"You're trying my patience, dwarf," hissed Sin-je, who by this time had raised the temperature of the room by several degrees. "Explain yourself, and quickly, or next time it won't be just your shirt that's burned."

He raised himself off the ground – grunting, but unscratched. _How is this possible?_ "Kid, don't piss me off," Wolverine was already on his feet, staring at her with steel blue eyes. "I ain't here to hurtcha, but Apocalypse didn't specify what kind of condition I had to bring you back in."

Yohn went into a panic. "Apocalypse? You mean this isn't for Xavier!" More names she didn't know. Maybe she should've read the paper. "Sin-je! Run! I'll take care of him, just go!" But the moment didn't feel as tense as it was, and something prompted her to stay, with Yohn's eyes looking more as they would soon fall out of his head with every second that she didn't move.

Wolverine just shook his head. "Let's go, Sin-je. We'll take a walk." He held up a hand to Yohn before he could speak. "Don't worry, kid. She'll be back. She's gotta get her stuff."

Yohn pulled out his lighter and flicked it open, but before he could do anything, Sin-je placed her hand on his, releasing the flame and capping the weapon. It was a weapon, in Yohn's hands.

"Look," _this makes no sense, and I don't really_ want _an explanation this time, but can we leave without violence? I know this guy means business but I don't think he'll kill either of us, so you go back to the bedroom and pack our things while I keep him busy, ok? We'll be out of Thabazimbi and probably out of South Africa by tomorrow, and who knows, maybe we'll find some place even _more_ isolated than here. Right?_, "I don't know why, but I have to hear him out. Like he said, I'll be back." She reached in and kissed him on the cheek – why couldn't she have just said what she wanted to? Why did this Wolverine already have a pull over her? "I promise."

When she pulled back, she could already see tears forming in Yohn's eyes. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into. I do. C'mon, Sin-je. We can still make it out of here –" Wolverine coughed loudly and unnecessarily by the door, as though either of them had forgotten his presence "– we can start all over again somewhere new."

"I need to know what he has to say. I'm not agreeing to anything!" She didn't understand why this was so hard for him to understand.

"Sin-je, if you go and take his fucking walk –" she so rarely heard Yohn curse that it was startling when he did " – then it's as good as leaving." Why was he doing this?

"Yohn, I'll be back in time to make you lunch." Neither of them ever ate lunch. Lunchtime was typically when they each started to get horny during the day, and fucking lasted well into the afternoon. He must've understood, but he didn't show it. Instead, he turned around and walked towards the back of the house.

"Touching, really." Wolverine had lit a cigar, a dangerous business in this household, and was reclined in the door frame.

"Shut the fuck up and start talking."

He motioned her out the door and into isolation. She walked past him and he quickly caught up as the two strolled leisurely down the path that approached the house, as if what had just happened had never happened, as if they had known each other all their lives, as if they were out to take in the scenery. Wolverine never turned his head – why would he? – but Sin-je did, once, flicking the golden Zippo she had palmed just minutes ago from Yohn. Surprisingly, he hadn't noticed – she would give him a hard time about it that night.

"The first mutant ever born. En Sabah Nur. Apocalypse. He's been around since before even my time." That didn't mean much to Sin-je. Wolverine could've been 30 or 60, she couldn't really tell. But either way, the cliché didn't have too much of an impact. "Some say he's immortal. They're probably right. He's going to take over the world. He wants you to share in the glory."

Sin-je stopped, thought for just a few seconds, and then doubled over laughing. One mutant was going to take over the world? And he knew about her, loved her so much that he wanted her to be at his side! It was all she could do not to keep from rolling in the ground. It was like some bizarre plot from those science-fiction novels Yohn loved – and here she was, getting proposed to by "En Sabah Nur," the mutant king who needed a queen to rule at his side! She almost wished she had managed to keep a straight face, to humor this crackjob Wolverine so he would tell her more! And Yohn was worried about _this_?

His face, on the other hand, hadn't changed. He stared at her with those same dead eyes, only now there was a hint of irritation in them.

"Oh come on!" She screamed, throwing up her arms when he could finally take a breath. "You don't think this is a little outlandish? Just a _little_ bizarre? The 'Almighty Apocalypse' wanting to take a Nerubian wife to boost his mutant-troop moral before his campaign for world conquest? Maybe if you read the paper every once in a while" ok, an unfair critique, but he didn't know, "you'd know that your master's mutant army is locked away helpless as the rest of the world sits and watches, wondering if it's going to happen next. Mutants are taking over the world in my lifetime. Go home, little man." She dismissed him with a flick of her wrist and expected him to walk away. Instead, he let out a little chuckle.

"Damn chicks always thinking it's about their boobs. Apocalypse doesn't need a _wife_, in fact I don't think the bastard's been laid in ten thousand years. He wants you to be a general."

Now _this_ was an interesting twist. A dumb one, but still interesting. "Great, so I'm supposed to serve a master who tracked down one specific girl in the middle of fucking nowhere," she spread her arms out, encompassing all Thabazimbi had to offer, to emphasize the point, "so that she can be his general? A girl who's never even _seen a gun in her fucking life_? Nice try, but it made more sense when he wanted me for these." She didn't know what possessed her to do it, what crazed mental state she was in, but she pulled down the mesh tank that already showed enough and flashed Wolverine. Letting the tank snap back up, she decided that this time she would be the one to end it, rather than waiting for him. She took two steps back in the direction of the house – at this point hidden by the man-high grass – before his hand wrapped around her arm.

"It isn't a _request_, Sin-je. Apocalypse can give you everything you've ever wanted. He can teach you about your powers, he has enough wealth to make Johnny-boy look like a _bedelaar_ on the streets of Jo-Berg." How long had he been in South Africa that he started peppering his English with Afrikaans? "And when he's done, Apocalypse will divide control of the globe amongst his Horsemen."

"Horsemen?"

"Generals. Apocalypse calls them Horsemen."

She plastered an obviously fake smile on, the kind of fuck-you smile she had learned to perfect after living with Yohn for a year. "Of course he does."

"But make no mistake, Sin-je. You leave here with me, or you die. There are no other options."

While he had shown remarkable staying power, Wolverine hadn't had the chance of ever getting close to her with those claws. Maybe she couldn't kill him, but she certainly wasn't going to die. And she hadn't _entirely_ given up the thought of killing him, either.

What she said next surprised even her.

"Why me, hey?"

"Apocalypse likes his symbolism. A girl from Africa who controls fire. Makes a fitting Horsewoman of Famine."

"So who're you supposed to be? Wolverine wasn't a Horseman in any story I read." Just maybe she was buying this whole story now.

He knew she was. He visibly relaxed. "Rube, I haven't gone by that name in ages. I'm the Horseman of Death. You can just call me Death."

Wolverine – or Death, or whatever – turned towards the house and started to walk back. "C'mon, we need to pick up your stuff. Apocalypse doesn't exactly keep a wardrobe for broads."

"What did you call me?" Sin-je hadn't yet moved.

"Broad?" He rolled his eyes and exhaled violently. "Shit, you're not one of those feminists-types are you?"

"Before that."

He stopped for a moment and thought. "Rube?"

She nodded. She could feel his eyes examining her, trying to understand her.

"Just from Ruby, color of your hair." He turned and continued walking. She started to chase after him just before he continued. "Or maybe it's because you're supposed to be the Nerubian Queen!"

She could feel the particles of fire build around her in sheer hatred before she let them go. He was infuriating, but that didn't mean he wasn't cute. If he could take punishment better than Yohn, maybe there was some benefit to this whole Apocalypse deal after all.

At the door, Sin-je finally broke the silence between them. "So am I to be called Famine, now? Because you know I really don't understand the whole code-name thing. Apparently Yohn used to be called Pyro, but it all sounds too comic-book cliché."

"Not yet. You'll know when you're truly a Horsewoman. C'mon. Pack what you need, leave what you don't – like your boyfriend – and let's hit the road. I got a minivan full of angry kids that need to be fed, burped, and put down to their naps."

She didn't really think about his comment – of all of the things he had told her today, his self-comparison to the American "Soccer Moms" she had seen on TV hadn't really grabbed her attention. Instead she made her way into the house, already forming the words of how to leave the love of her life.

"Yohn?" She shouted, unsure of where he was in the apartment. A few of his dirty clothes had been picked up from the living room – his way of apologizing was typically cleaning. So he was in good spirits, and probably in the bedroom napping or the study reading.

"Yohn?" She poked her head into the bedroom, calling just a little softer in case he was asleep. Maybe, just maybe, everything could be avoided with a carefully crafted note. No such luck – the bed was tucked, more immaculate than she had ever seen it before, the typical shirts draped over chairs folded and tucked into the shut drawers and closet.

"Yohn?" It hit her, like a rush, when she flung open the door to the study and saw the built-in bookshelves Yohn had requested only a week after moving in, stripped to the bone. Not a single title remained, not a bookend, not a globe, not a piece of shit they had picked up somewhere that had enough of a semblance of sentimental value to somebody that it should be put on display. He had taken it all. Which meant he was gone.

She ran down the hallway and turned at the bathroom, jolting out the door. From her right she heard somebody say something about being fast, but she didn't even pay it attention. How could she not have _noticed_! The car, which had only an hour ago been parked immediately in front of their house, was missing. He was really gone.

Sin-je all but threw herself back into the house and down the hall towards the bedroom. She flung the door open again and berated herself for thinking that the place was just _tidy_. _Anybody_ could tell that there was nothing in the closets, but she flung the doors open with all of the strength in her body, empty shelves bursting into sight behind panels of wood that were singed where she had grabbed them. She pulled the drawers out of the shelves, throwing them on the ground behind her, wood beginning to splinter from the force. But there was nothing inside, not the boxers that she had bought him, not the socks he pulled midway up his calves, not the printed tee-shirts she had bought him to wear under his black blazer, nothing. Nothing of hers either, but it didn't seem to matter. She dragged herself to the bed and knelt beside her, her head lying on her arm and propped up by the mattress that had been home to some of the best sex and love and warmth and kindness that she had ever felt, and cried.

"He took it all?"

She looked up and through the tears she saw Death standing in the exact same pose, different door frame. He was staring at Yohn's empty closet. "Must've been a bitch to take your things, too."

It was no good trying to compose herself, so she just sniffled. "He bought it all. It was all his money, and we always agreed that if anything ended, I wouldn't steal from him. I could never steal from him." The lighter in her pocket suddenly felt heavy.

"Well, at least he left you one thing." Death was standing by the closest closet to the door and digging in the back. He pulled out the orange dress and looked at it disgustingly. Before he had a chance to throw it back in a ball, Sin-je lunched at him and wrenched it from his arms, landing on the ground with her face covered in embroidered lilies. She resisted the temptation to wipe her tears with the silk, but it was her only item of worth now – she'd have to pawn it and start all over again.

"Get up." She pulled the dress away and looked up at Death who, from this angle, appeared much taller than he was. She wanted to send so much fire through him that his bone would melt. She wanted to just get up and slap him for fucks sake. But all she could do is cry. _Insensitive fuck_.

"I said, _get up_." The tears stopped flowing for just a moment as he finally looked down at her and made eye contact. He was serious. After seeing her devastated, lying at his feet wrapped up in silk lilies, he was seriously telling her to get up and go with him to…where? Where was she supposed to go? To start this new life as a mad-mutant's army general? Take on a stupid new code name?

She got up, alright.

"You fucking _idiot_! Look around you! I'm not going with you – whatever you're selling, I don't want it, so get the fuck out of my house, hey! Or you know what? You can fucking keep it! I can't make a living out here when there's not a _verdomp_ soul in sight! Are you happy now?"

"I'm looking around me. You have nothing here. Apocalypse can give it all back. Let's go." He spun on his heels and walked out the house like it was a given that she would follow. She spread the dress flat and replaced it on a hanger. Thirteen months later, she couldn't go back. She wouldn't go back. What else was she going to do? Dress in hand, she followed him out into the unknown.

_I can't believe he was serious. How could he have known what this stupid little man to offer me? And how could he not want me to take it? They knew each other, that much is clear, but how? Was it another part of the story that he never told me? There are so many parts of the story that don't make sense. If I could piece it together maybe I could find him, maybe I could understand where he went, why he went, why he disappeared without so much as a note or a goodbye – what did I do to not deserve a goodbye! Over a year wasted on some fleeting thing that I thought maybe, just maybe, could've been love. Wasn't it love? I've never felt anything like this before, with any other man. It was more than his beautiful baby blues or his just-built body (didn't I use to think he was too lanky? Why?). There was something about his arms. It was definitely his arms. They could solve anything; all they had to do was hold me. What I wouldn't give for one of his hugs now, only he was the one that caused the problem! He was the one that left without so much as a note or a goodbye – what did I do to not deserve a goodbye! A whole fucking year and I don't even get a goodbye?..._

_Is he thinking the same thing? Is he regretting his decision? He has to know I'd take him back (like I have a say in the matter) – is he afraid? He's probably not even worried about me, starting this whole fucking thing, diving in head first like I always do, like he always rescued me from. Is he leaving (did he leave?) because he doesn't want to save me anymore? I saved him plenty of times! I loved him, didn't I? I mean, I've never felt anything like this before, with any other man! I loved his baby blue eyes and his arms – oh his arms. With just the right amount of yellow, sun-bleached strands riding up them. And now I'll never get to see them again! Leave it to the prissy bitch to just walk out with those arms of his, without so much as a note or a goodbye…_

_And this fucking dress! Is it to remind me how much I love him, how much he hurt me? How vindictive! Or did he know I was going and decide to save me the trouble of packing? Did he want to beat me to the punch, was he that insecure that he had to leave (did he leave?) before I did, always be the dumper and not the dumpee? I wouldn't have left him! But wouldn't I have, Death did say to leave him behind but we could've made it work. What could I have done differently? He was being totally irrational, not even letting me figure out what the fuck was going on, but I should've read it in his eyes (such beautiful baby blues). He knew, and he didn't want me to take the offer. But why wouldn't he want me to take the offer? Wouldn't he want me to be happy? Wouldn't he want the best for me? The best like this fucking dress! The best for his Bombshell?..._

_He hasn't called me Bombshell in months – is he going to start? No. Because he ended it. Because he walked out without so much as a word or a goodbye. Because it's time I face the truth – he never gave a shit about me. He just takes pretty, young exotic girls and treats them to the time of their lives until it gets too hot for him to handle. He promised to care, we were talking about the rest of our lives! About moving to the United States someday, after all this madness calmed down, I agreed to do this because something in the back of my mind said it would speed up the onset of real life! Because our real lives were going to be together. We would stop running, we would be happy, and why couldn't he understand that I was doing this for him? He must've known what I was doing – why wouldn't he want me to step up and save the world?..._

_Was he serious? What if this was all a mistake? What if he emptied the house to sell everything, so we had enough money to move somewhere else, and escape Death (why did I even trust a man who calls himself Death!)! What if he's back at the house right now, he kept the car, he's ready for us to leave, that's why he left the dress, because he knows I love it so much, because he's waiting for us to go and start our lives all over again, like we always do, like we know how to do so well by now. He didn't leave me – I can't leave him! I have to go back! I have to! He's going to walk into the house and not find me and he's going to cry, and I can't stand to see those (beautiful baby blue) eyes cry. Where are we? Why can't I go back!_

Sin-je had been lost in her own mental rambling she hadn't even noticed that they were walking along the side of the one road that climbed the mountain, the one that she had for the past three months felt comforted by because it meant that home was approaching, that she and Yohn were wrapped tightly in the safety and warmth at the center of its spiral. Now she realized that it wasn't warmth, it was suffocation. Thabazimbi had killed their relationship. And as the _coup de'grace_, it was blocking her retreat – they had been walking for six hours at least, to be this far down the mountain. She wouldn't make it back up before nightfall. Maybe he would wait. Something in Sin-je told her that, if Yohn had come back from pawning the entire contents of the house, she would've seen the car pass them. Plus, he wouldn't have taken his books. Yohn used to author trashy romance novels, and half of his library was composed of limited edition prints of his own stories. Limited edition not because they were collector's items, but because they were horrible. But she loved him, and would never tell him. Not even after he left, _without so much as a note or a goodbye_.

It was another hour before they reached a giant black plane that stuck out in the rural scenery of Thabazimbi almost as much as their house did on top of the mountain. Without a glance behind to see if she was following, Death walked up the stairs like it was home. For the next seven hours, it would be. _Forgive me, you sorry holnaaier_.

On board, she found three other men waiting for her, not including Death who was checking switches in the cockpit and already all about business. One was sitting on a bench, attached to the wall closest to the door, his legs crossed. He was _beyond_ white, something so pale she had never seen before, sitting cross-legged and in what seemed to be a state of meditation. His eyes were open, and while his head had spun around on her entrance (to see the new addition, she assumed) but he seemed to be looking through her at something. She whipped her head around to see what it was, but there was nothing behind her. By the time her eyes came back, the man's were smiling; his face hadn't changed, but there was a slightly sinister gleam of something in them. Shivers ran up Sin-je's spine as she walked to the other side. It was probably safer – the two men occupying the wall were asleep.

There was a youngish one, not any older than herself at least, who was lying on his back with his feet propped up, legs bent, an arm underneath his head as a pillow. He was sleeping without a care in the world, a feeling that Sin-je seemed to remember from a distant past, but couldn't bring herself to even exhale without stuttering. His repose was violently confrontational and stunningly beautiful. She already hated him for it, whoever he was.

And then there was the third, in the back, lying flat on his stomach. She could make out too much, except that it looked like he was a passed-out _dronk_. He was balding up top, but she couldn't see a face, and so assumed him either tired, shitfaced, or dead. _Does it really matter?_

The plane lifted from the ground with a whirr, the only sound that filled that the cabin. Sin-je hadn't even though about the lack of runway, or all of the standing trees circling the landing site, until they were up in the air. What kind of plane was this, that it could just take off on a whim? Instead of questioning, she just buckled her seatbelt and folded the dress on her lap.

They had been flying for easily a half hour before the white man across from her spoke.

"My name is Fugu. I guess you're supposed to be the last Horseman? Horsewoman? What do we call you?"

"I'm Sin-je." She extended an arm, "and your guess is as good as mine."

Fugu shook his head. "Nothing personal, but I can't touch. Mutant power." He held up his hand as if that explained anything.

"You can't touch _anything_?"

"Oh I can, it's just people where it gets a little touchy. Pardon the pun. I tend to knock people out for a while, maybe kill them if the grip is too hard." He nodded his head towards the back of the cabin, towards the balding man.

"I was going to ask what his deal was…" Sin-je wasn't _terribly_ interested, but what else was there to talk about? _Yeah, so I have no idea what we're doing and feel like I'm the only one who's out of the loop. But this Death guy showed up at my doorstep, my boyfriend of thirteen months left me in the middle of fucking nowhere, and took all my shit with him. He left me worse off than he found me, so I can either go back to my life of crime hopping from city to city in South Africa until I run out of pockets to pick, or I can join this ragtag team to serve some crazed mad-mutant that I've never met before in his quest for world domination. I mean, did I really even _have_ a choice, when you put it that way?_ It certainly wasn't 'I-just-met-you' conversation material.

So instead Fugu told the story of how Cortez – the man in the back – had come on the plane and learned about Fugu's powers the hard way. In the course of conversation, she learned that the man sleeping next to her was named Flicker. These stupid codenames seemed utterly ridiculous, and they would just be traded in for new shit in a few hours.

She interrupted him midstory. "So which one are you supposed to be?"

He looked at her quizzically. "Oh, you mean Horseman?" She nodded. "Well, I guess Pestilence, given the poison in my body. So by process of elimination, you're Famine." She nodded again. "And what do you do? Make people go hungry?"

"Not really? I'm not quite sure why I was picked for this job. I generate fire." Her mind shifted back to the lighter again.

"So maybe he wants you to burn some fields?"

She hadn't thought of it, but it made sense.

"So tell me about Apocalypse." Might as well make use of a seven hour plane ride. Instead, Fugu just shrugged and shook his head.

"No idea. I was hoping you could tell me. In the heat of our escape, Death didn't really have a chance to tell us what we were getting into."

So she wasn't the only one. That was one worry removed, at least. It probably meant that Flicker – the Horseman of War, she had deduced – didn't know either. Which summed her newly trusted ally count at two. She pursued the obvious question about their 'breakout', learning they had escaped one of those concentration camps from the newspapers. At some point, Flicker sat up bleary eyed and openly gaped at her for a full minute before catching his bearings, noting for perhaps the first time that they were midair.

His eyes suddenly lit up and a big, cheeky grin that was a bit too wide for his face replaced the confused frown. "Hi!" Brown flooded his irises, a few strands of brown peaking out from his chin in pure innocence. It was maddening. The boy couldn't be a day over sixteen.

"You must be Flicker," she replied dryly.

"Yup! And you're Famine, right? I'm going to be War, soon, and that over there," he pointed to Fugu, "is Fugu. He's going to be Plague."

"Pestilence," Fugu muttered under his breath, but Flicker didn't seem to notice. Then he coughed, a sickening smoker's cough, but Flicker didn't pay attention to that either.

"So what's your real name?"

"Sin-je."

"Sin-je? Nice to meet you, Sin-je. My real name is William." He stuck out a hand and Sin-je shuffled back on her bench in shock. His right hand was missing, cut off with something like a hacksaw, the blood and bone showing inside. Her head spun with nausea, the contrast with his sweet baby face even more appalling.

He saw her face, which Sin-je could feel herself was draining quickly of color, and his smile faded. Looking down, he seemed to remember something violent, and fire flared up in those innocent eyes as he tucked his arm quickly behind him.

"Sorry." When he spoke, the overbrimming energy was gone from his voice, replaced by a man's two octaves lower, a man's that had seen more violence than she had lived in her life. There was something stirring within him, she could tell. How had she ever though him just a boy? In the recess of her mind, it was a comfort to know that she would at least have a partner whose demons were worse than hers.

The conversation naturally drifted between the three, finding a base in what to expect in Cairo, every so often turning to their histories. Fugu had been a drug-dealer, Flicker had remarkable hand-eye coordination (he felt a stab of sympathy for his missing trigger-finger), and she shared her powers, her history (although she left Yohn out of the story). They hashed and rehashed every conversation they had had with Death – the first time always in hushed tones to keep him from hearing, later openly although he piloted the plane from only a dozen feet away. Nothing really added up, or lent itself to any clues as to why the three had been pulled away from their lives (or their imprisonment, in the case of Fugu and Flicker) to serve this Apocalypse character. Fugu seemed to see more than the rest of them, trying to look into the religious symbolism behind Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen, the names, the connections to mutant powers, etc. Every so often, he would mutter that he would give anything for a Book of Revelations.

Occasionally, Cortez – the man in the back – would stir and gurgle. Fugu mentioned surprise at how long the poison was lasting, that with the strength he shook Cortez's hand the man should've woken up after only a half-hour, a little queasy but conscious. Instead, he flopped around for hours, grunting and groaning but never showing signs of awareness.

Surprising even herself, Sin-je was the first to connect the dots. "Can you unintentionally give more poison than you think?"

Fugu tilted his head questioningly. "No, I can control my powers." Sin-je caught a slight emphasis on 'my', but ignored it. "If I had given him enough poison to keep him down this long, I would barely be able to squeeze out another drop."

Sin-je felt Flicker's gaze mimic hers as they both waited impatiently for him to demonstrate.

"What? You need me to prove it?" Fugu started to pinch his arm, trying to isolate a single pore. All of their eyes were focused on his hands, waiting to see some toxic green spill out of his pale white skin. She wanted to turn away, from the sickly flesh, from the yellow fingernails, but more than that, she wanted to know she was right.

"Nothing." Flicker murmured.

Fugu released his own arm with an exasperated sigh, bringing his hand up to cough into. It was revolting.

"So maybe you don't know your own strength?" Flicker asked to Fugu.

"Or maybe he wasn't in control." Sin-je replied. "Hey, _WOLVERINE_?" She yelled. Fugu, who was more relaxed now, although he was looking at his hand trying to find another clue, and Flicker both turned to her quizzically. She leaned into the center of the plane to include both of them and stated flatly, "Death's old name."

There was no response from the cockpit, so she tried again. "Hey _WOLVIE!_"

This time there was a snarl before a deep and rough voice replied. "Don't call me that, Rube!"

She ignored his request. "What can Cortez do?" Yelling over the whirr of the engine was starting to hurt her voice.

"Besides be a complete jackass?"

"Besides that!"

"Amplify or weaken a mutant's powers!"

"Thanks, Wolvie!"

"Don't be a bitch, Rube!"

She raised her eyebrows in anticipation of 'you-were-right-all-along-Sinje' but instead Fugu looked deeper into his hand, searching for traces of Cortez's powers. Flicker was still dumfounded.

"So?" Flicker looked at Sin-je expectantly.

"So Cortez, for whatever reason, amplified Fugu's powers. So he's still passed out. So Fugu's out of poison."

"Give it time, I'll have more before we land," Fugu murmured, but now neither of the other two was paying attention.

The only question they had left was what Cortez's role in their employment was. He had bossed Fugu around like he was some superior, but Death hadn't paid the passed out man any attention. And they had decided early on not to be placed at the bottom of the food chain.

"If we're going to be Horsemen," Fugu had interjected while Sin-je was trying to verbalize possible uses of her power to create a famine, "then we should be on equal footing with _him_." He tilted his head to indicate their pilot.

"Death?" Flicker was wide-eyed. "Yeah, sure, equal footing. And when he kicks the fucking shit out of you for thinking you're better than him?"

"Then we have to be united in our stand," Fugu's sickly voice had an awkward sternness to it, one he was no doubt not used to using.

Sin-je thought about it for a while. It would be nice not to show up and be locked in a room until she was needed, to actually have a leadership role like Death seemed to have, to not have to follow the orders of a bunch of chauvinistic white men. She was fucking sick of chauvinistic white men. "If we all just refuse to take shit from whoever we run into when we get to Cairo, then they'll know not to mess with us."

Fugu nodded, but Flicker's bushy eyebrows (how had she ever thought he was young?) climbed even higher. "Even _Apocalypse_?" For him, the name had such reverence. But everything that they had said up to that suggested that Flicker knew about as much with regard to Apocalypse as she did. Where she saw no other option, Flicker saw so many false promises. He was still naïve, but she could see that he would teach her more than she could imagine. His personality was such an impressive force, she could feel it entering and crawling around in her pores. She wanted more.

But there were three of them, not just two. "I'd rather be Apocalypse's friend than his lackey, whoever he is. And the only way to do that is be at his right hand side, just like Death. I can't do it without your support, though." The last sentence included the both of them, not just Flicker.

Sin-je's mind floated back to something Death had mentioned earlier that day. "He promised something about dividing the globe amongst us. What do you think that means?" Both of her companions turned to her cockeyed, confused, so she continued to explain. "When Death was trying to convince me to go – "

"You needed _convincing_?" Flicker interrupted.

She ignored him, and restarted. "When Death was trying to convince me to go, he said something about how," and here her voice changed to something from a children's horror show, "when Apocalypse conquers the earth, and all of the humans are under his control –"

Flicker joined in " – and there is peace among man, and Sentinels lay down their laser guns –"

Sin-je started to snap her fingers, and dropped the spooky ghost voice " – and when the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will – "

Fugu coughed his hacking cough, a disgustingly wet rasp that sounded as though a lung was trying to dislodge and shoot up his throat onto the floor. At first Sin-je was pissed, but realized quickly that he wasn't faking, he wasn't trying to interrupt; the man was slowly dying from the inside, poisoned by his own powers. She stopped. Maybe this was more serious than she thought.

After a moment of awkward silence, she continued, her voice lowered and somber. "Anyways, yea, uhm." She pushed the hair that had fallen over her eyes back behind her hair, buying time, needing a distraction. "Well, Death told me that Apocalypse would divide control of the globe amongst the four of us Horsemen. I don't really know what that means. But, uh, it's something. He didn't say if Cortez gets anything." There was a long silence. Flicker had returned to fingering the raw and exposed edge of his arm, even though Sin-je cringed at the thought that he was probably going to cause an infection. Fugu was lost in thought, his gaze focused on an unremarkable spot of the plane floor. He knew he was dying, he knew he didn't have much time. And Sin-je, well she had her own personal issues that resurfaced in the silence, when she wasn't singing or smiling. Her hands danced around each other in circles, rolling the dress around her, bunching it into a ball. She needed a distraction.

She turned to Flicker, intentionally doing the hair-toss. "So tell me about your first love." Matter of fact, cool, controlled. Maybe she could toy with him.

His eyes bugged out and filled with panic. He shifted uneasily on the bench and he searched out the spot on the floor that held Fugu's attention at ransom. "I, uh…well…there was this girl that I knew once, um…she, well…she –"

"Not her. I asked about your first love." Sin-je could see right through him.

Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as his feet crossed and uncrossed at the ankles.

"She was a human wasn't she?"

He finally looked up from the floor and stared her in the eye. He looked past her, he seemed to be examining her existence, her _reason_. Such full, brown irises – the juxtaposition of youth and wisdom both made her scoot back on the bench and lean forward into his gaze at the same time..

He didn't answer. Instead he asked his own question. "Tell me about the man you killed."

It was her turn to flip out. Her back instantly straightened and brought her away from him, trying to climb up to his height, an automatic defense (she knew) but here it was justified. How did he know? She had mentioned thieving a few times, but hadn't specified Jo-berg, or the specific heist, or the boy that had chased her through the night. But Flicker didn't seem on the up and up – what had she said that had led him to such a conclusion. Had Death told them? _We're going to pick up our Horsewoman of Famine. Think you two are badass? She killed an innocent kid in Jo-Berg_. _Get some sleep, South Africa is a world away from New York City_.

"Well…" she started, stammering. This was awkward. "Well…he cornered me in a dark alley. I really didn't…_know_…about my –"

"Not him. The one who gave you the dress."

The one who what? She glanced down at the dress to see if there was blood on it, or something related to Yohn, before she realized her stupidity. Of course there wasn't. Her head shot up and her gaze connected with Flicker's own piercing examination. "Yohn's not dead!"

"Are you sure about that?"

Sin-je's mouth worked without producing any noise. This man had just pried a wealth of information from her while at the same time filled her with a thousand doubts. He was a man, not a boy. A man with immense power. The naïveté was just a ruse to disarm her.

He picked the conversation up again. "Her name was Ashley. Or Ashleigh, or Ashlee or something like that. Freshman year in high school, she sat at my table in biology." Flicker relaxed against the wall, turning his body towards her, chuckling at ease. "I failed the class because I couldn't take my eyes off of her. We had fun on and off again at my house, when my mom was busy having her affair and my dad was busy hunting. I suppose it was his own affair. But yea, it wasn't anything serious, just some harmless fun. For her. I don't mean to…brag. But I'm good with my hands." He looked down at his left hand, possibly regretting the use of the plural. At least he hadn't pulled the stub of his right arm back out. "For me, it was something more. Anyways, competition pulled me away. I did competitive shooting for a while," he explained. "And she…well, she wanted a boyfriend who didn't do anything except fuck her. So she found a highschool dropout, and followed suit."

Sin-je didn't nod, or apologize, or tell him he was better for it. Instead, she just spoke, routinely as though she had told this story a thousand times. She had never spoken the words before. They tumbled out quickly, without breaths in between. "I know you asked about Yohn and I'll tell you but not right now. I can't, it hurts too much, and I know it was tough for you to tell me about your freshman biology girl but Yohn and I were more than a fingerfuck in an unfinished basement of a house that didn't belong to either of us. But a week from Friday will be the year anniversary of when I _did_ kill that boy in Jo-berg in the dark alley. I had stolen a painting that his aunt, who lived in your New York City, had sent him for his birthday. He was a mutant just as we are and he had super speed, so even though I had a head start it really didn't mean much, did it? So he stopped me, and he didn't even ask for it back, he just wanted to know why. But I knew he'd tell his aunt. So I killed him and ran." There was a long silence. "But you're right. He was ready to die, I didn't really kill him. He wasn't the man I killed."

"We're here!" came a shout from the cockpit. "Everyone buckle up and hang the fuck on!"

Sin-je glanced up at Flicker, and the two shared an exchange that seemed to communicate entire conversations. That while they had shared some of their most personal stories, none of them had gone too personal, and that they each knew that, and that it wasn't over just because of some stupid landing in Cairo that would change their lives. They'd go see what this was about, but next chance they had to sneak away together, while Fugu and Death and maybe even Apocalypse thought they were fucking like rabbits, they would continue to talk.

The landing was surprisingly smooth, although when the wheels touched the ground Cortez finally woke with a start in the back of the cabin. He was an older man, with a head full of orange hair pulled back in a pony-tail and mullet combination. It didn't really suit him, but then neither did his face. It was wrinkled and blotchy, somewhere in between the stages of burnt and pasty again. Sin-je couldn't tell if the dark circles under his eyes were permanent or from Fugu's little retaliation. His scowl fixed on Fugu, Sin-je couldn't even tell if Cortez had noticed her yet.

After the plane had finally turned off, and Death had disembarked, and the four remaining passengers sat in awkward silence awaiting their instructions – Sin-je noted that Cortez waited just as they did, only with less patience and more frustration – a new man appeared. Sin-je had to do a double-take – the man could have been Fugu's brother. He was even _whiter_, even _more transparent_, and standing at the door, made Fugu appear to have a greenish tint about him that she hadn't noticed before. The only difference was that this new man had searing yellow eyes, and perhaps was a bit gaunter in his face, his cheeks hollow where Fugu's were only sickly. Other than that, they were one and the same. It was frightening. Did they know each other? Fugu made no sign that they did.

"Pleased to meet you," the man said without introducing himself, or making any move to know them. "Follow me. The Great Lord anxiously awaits your arrival."

Flicker was the first to bound out of his seat, racing out the airplane door as Sin-je slowly undid her belt. She stood, realizing for the first time how tall Fugu was as he stood next to her, and he motioned for her to go first. _Can't stop now, can I? I'm in fucking Cairo._ She grabbed the dress and walked outside.

They had missed Cairo by a few miles, unless the capital city of Egypt had been turned into an arid desert. Sand stretched to the ends of the earth in every direction, so much so that it seemed to wrap around the world and come back to her. There were only two things that still existed, and the plane was behind her, the previous step. The next was in front of her, the Pyramid of Khufu. Seeing it this close, she understood the term 'wonder of the world'. She could already tell that she would never see anything as impressive as this again, and for a moment just stood on the plane stairs admiring the history. What business could they possibly have here?

The man was already at the base of the pyramid, with Flicker in tow like a puppy dog. She followed at her own pace, in no rush to leave the shadow of such a marvel. Fugu walked beside her, but neither talked nor looked at each other. Both were transfixed by the pyramid.

"Inside, please." Sin-je looked down to see that the man was now standing in an open doorway to the pyramid that had not been there before. She had heard stories of the intricacies and puzzles within the pyramids of Egypt but had never put stock in them. After the past twenty-four hours, a disappearing pyramid wall was beginning to feel normal.

The four of them assembled in a dank receiving room that narrowed seemed to sprout hundreds of narrow hallways like limbs. Waiting for them was Death and another man – another with white skin, although it looked faker, as though he powdered his face. He had a red diamond fixed on his forehead, and she could almost make out her reflection in it, and she looked a mess. She briefly thought about using her powers – or maybe even the lighter in her pocket – to illuminate the room, but didn't want to kill the mood. The little light that was streaming in from the door started to fade, and she turned to glimpse the door just as it shut and blended into the wall. She'd never be able to find it again. But Cortez had come in behind them. So that made seven all together: Flicker, Fugu, Death, Cortez, red diamond, yellow eyes, and herself. A wonderful crowd. And she was the only girl.

"Sinister," yellow eyes turned to red diamond, "take Gryphon to his room." Red diamond – Sinister? – smiled an alarming array of triangular teeth that locked together like a piranha. A long, disgustingly dirty finger beckoned Flicker, who for the first time since landing, since this whole thing started she believed, he was hesitant. But he followed. The two disappeared down a hallway.

"Death," yellow eyes continued, "take Peyper to her room. Fulton, please come with me. Cortez, you will wait here until you are summoned." _Snap, someone's in trouble_. Death came up to her, all business and formal, standing straight to try to gain some height – he still only topped her by an inch or less. He motioned for her to follow, and they branched down yet a different hallway from the rest. Once they were out of ear shot, Sin-je spoke up.

"I'm glad I got you at least. Who were those other guys, hey? One of them was called Sinister? What's with the names?"

Death didn't respond. Instead, he kept walking, the heels of his shoes clacking against the worn stone. The hallway seemed to narrow as they progressed further and further, and she half expected to end up upside-down in the same receiving chamber, trapped in a bad Escher drawing.

When she was about to make her second attempt at conversation, Death stopped in the middle of the hallway. It was completely unremarkable, no extra light – just the glow that seemed to slightly warm the entire pyramid, or what she had seen of it – no branching hallway, nothing. He pushed in a stone that was just like any other stone, except that it sunk into the wall and a door pulled back into a room. Death motioned for her to enter, and she did. Before she could ask him what the purpose was of splitting them up, she heard the door slam shut behind her with a click. She was locked in. She spun on her heels, panicked at the Wonderland that she was trapped in. The walls, the floor, the ceiling – everything was a checkerboard, the entire room covered in black and white squares. Part of her wanted to vomit from vertigo. In the middle of the room sat a table with two chairs. She ran up to it to see if there was anything important for her, like a fucking key. Instead, she found another chess board, normal sized, with no pieces. The squares were numbered, one through sixty-four, starting from the top left. Resting on top of the board was a pair of glasses with ruby red lenses, they matched her hair almost exactly. But there was no key anywhere.

It took her about a minute after examining the tools on her table to realize what was going on. She had just fallen to the pyramid's first puzzle.

"My name is Flicker, it's nice to meet you." This man, this "Sinister" was incredibly unnerving. As soon as Flicker had seen that interlocking smile, he wanted to run back onto the plane screaming. And flying himself back to New York and strapping on a collar if necessary to protect himself from Sinister. Although he doubted it would help.

Of course he didn't respond, but Flicker didn't really expect him to. Really, he was just trying to figure out where he was going that required them to split up. Maybe it was to repair his hand – on the plane, on their way to Cairo, Death had promised that Apocalypse could fix it. Maybe while he was sleeping, Death had radioed ahead and requested the machine be all set up for his arrival. And the others were just waiting in their rooms for him to finish. Sin-je would be excited about the surgery, he could tell.

Lost in thought, Flicker hadn't realized that they had come upon a door, but sure enough they had. Sinister stood, motioning with his hands but mandating with his teeth that Flicker enter the room. _Let's get this done with_.

He entered a room that was made entirely of stone, just like the halls had been. Here there were no carvings, no decorations, no grandeur, nothing. The pavestones beneath his feet were larger than before, this time perhaps a bit more exact in their shape, but beyond that, nothing. Just a large rectangular room. Most importantly, there was no surgical table, or machine, or cybernetics station, or anything that could possibly be construed to reattach a hand. Fuck, there wasn't even a bed.

He turned around to see the door snap shut, once again becoming a part of the wall. Remembering where that last line of light had come through, though not much else about the door, he ran to it and banged with his fist as hard as he could, screaming for someone to let him out.

Flicker whipped around to look at his prison once again. The room was almost too perfect – it seemed an exact two-to-one rectangle. The stones below looked too much like perfect squares. And the far wall lacked any color variation. There was something fake about this room, and if he had to fight to get his hand back, then it was just one more battle.

Fugu knew that at this stage, small talk would accomplish nothing. All evil men – be it Apocalypse or Kingpin – liked their rituals. They liked being brought guests, servants, rather than seeking them out. They were trapped in an illusory world of grandeur while men like Fugu did the real work. And the ushers who walked the lines of both lives often knew nothing of neither.

This man who walked in front of him, however, leading Fugu through twisted catacombs as though to disorient him, seemed to have some sort of power. He had charge over the others at least, including Death. So rather than question a figure of such clear authority and cast his loyalty in shadow even before anything was official, Fugu worked to undermine the man's work like a termite. He mentally recorded every twist and turn they made, every distinguishing mark in every indistinguishable hallway. What seemed like an implausible nine turns to the left later, his guide stopped at a metal door built into the pyramid wall.

"Your room." The man made no move to open the door, or help Fugu in, so he assumed he was to do it himself. The large handle came down with a groan and Fugu walked in to wait out the obligatory wait. Inside, the room had come alive.

He stood at the top of a hill in a very large, narrowly constructed rainforest. Vines crawled up the walls and hung from the ceilings, interspersed with trees that had outgrown the room. At the far end, a waterfall came streaming down from the ceiling into a shimmering blue pond that spread itself out on the stone floor. The ground had been covered in leaves, but the entire thing felt as though it were still very much part of the pyramid – he had entered a greenhouse, not the Amazon. It was stunning in its beauty, but Fugu was quick to note there wasn't even a couch or chair for him to sit as his host observed the wait.

He turned around to see the guide's grin as he closed the large steel door, locking it with a _click_. Apocalypse appeared a little more violent with his guests than the sort of men Fugu was used to dealing with. The lock seemed unnecessary; not only did Fugu know the mores of the business, but even if he had managed to escape, where would he go? There was nothing for miles, and he had know doubt Apocalypse knew that Fugu was not a long-distance runner.

A growl behind him brought his attention back to his tropical cell. Slowly approaching, with a snarl that revealed one half of a pair of very large fangs, a tiger twice his size was staring at him territorially. Black stripes seemed to drip off of its orange back onto the floor, and as its speed quickened, those stripes became a blur. Apocalypse was _much_ more violent with his guests than necessary.

The only obvious way out from his position was a tree to the right and a vine to the left. He went for the vine – it wasn't a conscious decision, there was no reason for it, no strategy involved, it was simply instinctual – and leapt for it. Too high, but it was close enough to the uneven stone wall. The tiger was now charging at full pace.

Fugu found a few handholds, a few more footholds, and climbed up to the level of the vine just as his predator reached the wall. Both of them jumped at the same time – Fugu didn't have time to think of what would happen if he didn't grab on. He did, as the tiger came down off the wall after its failed attempt at capture. Now, he had time to think.

There was only one exit for him besides down, which was now guarded by a pacing tiger. That exit was yet another vine. Fugu had trained himself so well to wall climbing and running, fence hopping, and everything an escape artist in Queens would need. Swinging on vines was for Tarzan of the jungle, not a drug dealer of the ghetto. It was that or fall into the jaws of the beast below. He could adapt.

He threw his entire body back and forth to move the vine. The vegetation had grown so thick in this room that his rope showed absolutely no signs of ever giving way – a small comfort that took his mind off the growling. Unlike the movies, Fugu wasn't going to take any chances and jump from the vine; instead, he swung patiently until he was able to touch the next with his fingertips. One more swing, and he grabbed the next vine while letting his legs fly free of the old one. This one was not as supportive.

Almost as soon as Fugu had wrapped his body around the vine, it began to start a slow descent, almost mechanically to the ground. The tiger leapt up at its newly lowered pray, but Fugu was already hand over hand climbing higher on the vine, struggling to maintain his previous height. Like a gear turning into place, the movement stopped with a click, followed by a thud. He didn't appreciate these parlor trick traps when there was a very real danger below.

Now he was out of options. There was no where to go besides the wall and a short fall to death, or back to the other vine. Neither seemed like a game he was much interested in playing. Somehow, he'd have to get rid of the tiger. He couldn't remember if tigers like water or not, but seemed to remember the ones at the Bronx Zoo at least near a pond, so that option was out. He didn't have any bludgeoning or piercing weapons – he wished for a moment that Flicker, wherever he was, had traded rooms with him, as the man surely had a veritable armory attached to his body in some way – and while he could try to use a tree branch, that would first require getting to a tree. It seemed like an impossible task. Of course, so was beating the Sentinels with his collar on.

He at once remembered that he was, in fact, no longer collared and could use his powers to his aid this time. But before he could use his hands, it was time for some aerial acrobatics. This he knew how to do. Making sure his hands were as close to the ceiling as possible, and noting that in fact this vine was not attached to the vegetation but came from through a metal hole in the stone above, Fugu pulled his feet up to just below his hands, arching his back inwards in a toe-touch. He coughed, a desert-dry mouthful of phlegm shooting from his mouth, but he didn't pull up his hand to cover it; losing his grip would probably mean death. Looping the vine around his ankles with one hand while the knuckles of the other turned whiter at his grip, Fugu finally realized that this must be another test. Death had told them on the plane to Cairo that he hadn't entered the Sentinel fight to make sure the two could handle themselves. It had cost Flicker a hand and Fugu a small portion of his sanity, but to Death it was just another test.

Which meant that Flicker and Sin-je were in similar rooms in the pyramid. They all were expected to escape their man-eating tiger by…well, doing what, exactly? Certainly there were mechanics at work in this room – was it a game? A race? A puzzle? A scavenger hunt? He was good at finding the answers to problems in a pinch, but here he hadn't been given the question at all. His guide had simply locked him inside a fucking rainforest.

After securing his ankles, Fugu let what was left of the free vine go, swinging himself upside down. He was almost walking on the ceiling. Hands free, he squeezed drops of toxin out of his pores, dripping them down onto the tiger's back. Another cough, one so violent that it rattled his own ribcage, caught the tiger's attention. Finally, the creature looked up and stuck out a tongue, hoping to catch a few beads to quench its thirst. Finally, just as Fugu felt that he might run out of toxin in his arm, the tiger's eyes rolled back in its head as it collapsed to the ground on its stomach, asleep. Fugu rubbed his arm, which had turned red from the pinching, and lifted himself up to undo his ankle binds.

He had to figure whatever they were in was a race, and that Flicker and Sin-je had easily dispatched of the tiger, which meant he was behind. The only thing he could count on was that Flicker would jump the trigger while trying to get the door open, and that Sin-je would be too dumb to find the key. The girl was attractive, and she knew it, and she had probably used that to get this far in life. It was probably why she was chosen by Apocalypse, so she could be a concubine while the men fought the war.

Binds undone, Fugu dropped himself to the ground near the tiger. He'd be out maybe a half hour, so he'd have to work quickly: an added incentive to win the race. He started to head for the waterfall – his safest starting point – before he noticed something tied around the tiger's neck. It was some sort of octagonal medallion, strung on a leather cord and secured as a necklace buried in orange fur. Fugu was not interested in getting closer to see what the medallion was of – if all of Apcalypse's "pets" wore one, he'd know soon enough, if he wasn't forced to display one himself. His neck itched from the remembrance of the collars in the concentration camps. Be it ties, necklaces, medallions or leashes, everyone seemed so eager to display their true master on their neck. It was a puzzle for another time, Fugu decided. Race now, become a sociologist tomorrow.

His legs took him across the rainforest in less than a minute. Slightly out of breath, he began a slow and cautious search of the waterfall and pond. Flicker would be bounding up and down, too clumsy to see something right in front oh him. Sin-je…well, he hadn't known her long enough to know what she'd do here. But his advantage was calculated observation. Almost immediately, he spotted something.

In front of the pond, overwhelmed by a long-lost battle against the growth of the room, was a stone plaque with four slots. Octagonal slots. Fugu already knew what he had to do.

He raced back to the sleeping tiger, keeping an eye out for the three other places medallions could be hiding. He stopped just short and considered the beast for just a moment. Of course he had full confidence in his powers, but had the tiger had as much poison as Fugu believed? Or was he only sleeping off a few drops, anxious to wake up at the removal of his pendant. But his hesitation was only for a moment – there was a difference between being deliberate and being cowardly; one won the race and the other lost. With one sweep of his arm, the ornament was in his hand and he was racing back to the plaque.

Fugu dropped to his hands and knees to inspect the tablet further. There was nothing that indicated this was a lock, but surely the medallion fit? He examined the pendant first – an image of a pacing tiger was etched onto the front, and the back was blank. He dropped it into the first slot, expecting to hear a whirr or ding or acknowledgement of his success. Nothing. Looked like he would have to find the other three.

The only apparent hiding place from here was the pond. Fugu was not a swimmer, as his perpetually rebelling lungs reminded him all too often. But he could try and hold his breath for a few moments and check just beneath the surface. It seemed in this, too, the others would have an advantage. Driven by the belief that he was losing, Fugu, threw his body into the water.

As soon as his eyes were open he saw what he was looking for. On the bottom of the pond, not terribly far down, was a large chest. Wondering if he had enough breath to stay and unlock a chest, Fugu was relieved to find that the key – yes, they must be keys – was actually a part of the top of the trunk and not inside at all. With his long fingernails he pried the emblem off and kicked himself all the way back up.

His lungs had held him only out of need. Once he broke the surface, they demanded compensation. His body convulsed with the force of his hack, the water around him splashing as his hands flailed. The wheeze sounded like it was grating the skin off of his lungs and throat, before it finally had to be expelled. It left him disoriented and sore, floating in the pool. But he had the sigil.

As though he had been at sea for days instead of moments, he sunk his fingers like claws into the grass on shore and dragged himself out of the water. He collapsed on his back, panting for air. The medallion was of a fish, simply drawn, and again there was nothing on the back. His right arm reached behind him and fumbled blindly for the plaque, finally dropping the key into the second slot. Again, there was no sign that he was doing anything right, but this time his hopes hadn't been too high. Two down, two more to go.

He could search the grass or the vines or the treetops, but the previous two emblems had been in significant places, places that were _worth noticing_. He started the climb back up the hill, slowly this time, keeping his eyes open for anything unusual. Everything was unusual. He was in a fucking rainforest in the heart of an Egyptian pyramid. The vines wrapping the wall seemed to throb, as though the entire room was indeed a heart, pumping life to some other chamber. Or pumping something at least. He jogged to the closest wall and examined one of the vines. It wasn't vegetable at all – it was a green rubber tube, and it was throbbing. There was something pulsing through it, a dark liquid that occasionally presented a silhouette.

Once again, Flicker must have been at an advantage. He would be the one with a knife thick enough to cut the "vine" whereas Fugu had nothing but possibly a tiger's fang. And Fugu was not stupid enough to try that. _Maybe the chest in the pond…_Just as he was about to walk away, he noticed something that was not a vine on the same wall just a few feet up the hill. He approached and realized that it was a snake that had been pinned to the wall with large stakes in the shape of an S or maybe a 5. It didn't really interest him – what did was the item it held in its mouth. Another medallion. Fugu ripped it out of the dead jaws and took a quick look at the front – not a snake, but a lizard, from a bird's eye view. As he started the walk back to the stone setting, a ripple of white noise filled the room adding to the rush of water. It was a tap, then some static, as though his observers – of _course_ there were observers – were just now turning off a microphone. Or turning it on. As quickly as he heard it, it was gone, and he found himself at the plaque.

Dropping the third key in the third slot, Fugu tried to calculate his pace. He had started off slow, but surely he was beating at least Sin-je by now. This hunt, whatever it was, seemed to be suited so much to Flicker's abilities that it was almost impossible to believe Apocalypse thought the other two could compete. It struck him that maybe, the other prospects just might have different races. It put an entire new slant on everything. Were they doing something that would be a cakewalk for himself?

As Fugu began his slow survey of the room once more, the white noise came back. This time, however he heard a voice.

"Hello?" Flicker's voice echoed through the room.

"Flicker!" Fugu yelled back, unsure of where the microphone was in the room. Or the speakers, for that matter.

"Hello? Can anyone hear this?"

"Flicker? It's Fugu! Where are you?"

"Hello?" The pop, and the intercom went silent.

This game was officially getting strange. So Flicker wasn't playing? Or he was, because he obvious didn't know that Fugu was on the other end. Where was his way of communicating back? His eyes immediately shifted upwards to find where the voice had come from. No visible slits in the ceiling, no distinguishable tiles. Nothing that presented itself as a speaker. But close to the ceiling, dangling from a tree branch almost directly above him, was the final medallion.

Just in case it _was_ still a race, Flicker would have to wait. Fugu leapt at the tree and hugged it, beginning the rapid hopping motion that would bring him to the top. Twice in forty-eight hours was starting to take its toll on Fugu's body, but in short time he had the piece and was working his way back down. He was at the foot of the tree when Flicker's voice came back.

"Helloooooooo? Can anyone hear me? I'm in a room, and the wall keeps trying to kill me." What the fuck was he talking about? "I just want my hand back. Please?" Another pop, rumbling through the glade. No, it wasn't a glade. It was a mechanical room in a pyramid! Fugu needed to remember that if he was going to make it out.

He sprinted to the plaque for what he hoped to be the final time. So Flicker was in a different room. And it sounded like he was trapped. So he came to what he thought was the fifteenth conclusion today. They were all trapped in different puzzles, and possibly had the option of helping each other out, if they could communicate. So maybe they were a team. He'd figure it out once the key was in place.

Fugu held his breath, listening for any clicking or unlocking as he gently placed the ape emblem down in the fourth and final slot. Nothing. Fuck. Now what?

Flicker's voice came back on the intercom. "I don't know if anybody can hear this, but I'm going to explain where I am, just in case. I'm trapped in a room inside a pyramid in Cairo, Egypt. It seems to be a square, and a center wall keeps rotating and trying to smack me. Right now, I'm in a little cove that juts off the room and has a red button, which I am pressing, and three slots that seems to be some sort of microphone. Or maybe it's a speaker? Anyways, on the back of the wall are four images. A fish, a reptile kind of thing, a cat or a tiger, and a monkey. The whole room is stone, like the rest of the pyramid I'm in, and the floor in particular seems to be a little too grid-like. I don't know if I'm talking to Apocalypse, or Sinister, or someone not even in Egypt, but if you can hear this, PLEASE HELP!" Pop, and Flicker disappeared. But he had given Fugu a wealth of answers.

First, their puzzles were interlinked, which meant they not only could help each other, they _had_ to. Which made this not a race at all, but simply a task. _So where is Sin-je?_ Second, Flicker had provided the answer to the puzzle in front of him. Fugu grabbed the medallions out of their slots and began rearranging them. Fish. Lizard. Tiger. Ape. There was no click, but he knew something had happened – as soon as he placed the ape down, another plaque of four slots slid out from the first. Fantastic. How long was this to continue?

Flicker's voice came back to help him. "I think you can hear me now, because something just happened to the four animals. There might be something on the other side of the wall, but I don't really know because I can't get there. Ummm….hang tight!" And he was gone. Well, at least they were coordinating something.

He could do something, like try the chest below in the pond, or fight with the fake vine, or anger the tiger. Instead, he sat by the plaque, catching his breath, thinking. Supposing that the chest and vine were two of the four medallions he needed, there were still two more hiding places he needed to find, and getting himself all worked up and sore wasn't going to help. So he surveyed his options.

He could dig through the grass, but again that seemed tedious. He could check tree-tops. The ape medallion had been swinging from a branch, so it's logical that perhaps a bird could be hidden in a nest somewhere? He also hadn't explored behind the waterfall to see if there was a secret passage or something similar – the water was so dense as to obscure the wall behind it, but it seemed to blend well enough into the rest of the room. What was he missing?

Knowing Apocalypse, one of them could be inside the tiger's stomach. So now he had to cut open two things, one of which would fight back. And he'd have to do it without a knife. That still left one more piece missing. Well, if there was one in the chest, one in a nest, and one in the tiger, it meant that the second four were all near the first four. So it had to be something around the snake that was pinned to the wall.

Solving the problem of location, Fugu set his mind to knife-making. He could use a branch, but that would do more poking than cutting. Unlike Flicker, not everything was a weapon in Fugu's hands. However, based on Flicker's panicked voice about walls, Fugu was willing to wager his friend was wishing he had Fugu's ability in scaling walls right about now. He turned his head to the 'shore' of the pond, running his hand along the stones in the hopes of finding something sharp. No such luck. Maybe the actual medallions? They were sort of sharp around the corners, but were hardly aerodynamic enough to do much more than bludgeon, rather than slice. Was the only option _really _the tiger's fang?

Flicker's voice came back to him. "Shark, Serpent, Lion, Dude! Holy shit!" and disappeared as quickly. Where those the four new emblems? He'd have to remember that order.

Just then, there was a grinding sound from the plaque as the ground around it began to shake. Fugu leapt to his feet and stared at the ground where the stone template vibrated in the ground. As quickly as it started, it had stopped. He bent down carefully to examine it, but couldn't see any changes. The second container was still out, the four medallions were still in place, in order. He pried the fish out to see if there was something underneath. Instead, he found a new etching on the back of a shark. A wave of relief spilled over him as he ripped the other three sigils out of the plaque. The lizard had become a snake, the tiger a lion, the ape a man. Had Flicker really said "dude"? He fumbled to rearrange the pieces into the order that he had heard over the intercom and place them, now reversed from their original faces, into the second plaque. Apocalypse's obsession with evolution bordered on insanity. As he placed the man, who standing upright with one foot on another dead man, into the final slot, he heard the sound he had been waiting for since his caging. The click of a door unlocking echoed through the entire chamber.

He was free. Somehow he doubted that meant the game was over.

Sin-je kneeled on the ground, arms folded on the table and supporting her head, looking furiously at a world of red. As soon as she had entered the room she had put on the red glasses – they seemed the obvious choice. She examined the chess board, the walls, the place where she remembered the door being, and everything else she could think of with the glasses. She had double checked and triple checked the numbering on the chess board to make sure there weren't any mistakes, any glaring errors that might give her a clue. All she had found was a screw in the center of the board, as though a piece were missing.

Chess was slowly becoming her thing. On their second day together in Sun City, Yohn had brought her down to the pool to teach her how to play the game. He said it sharpened the mind, quickened your logical reasoning abilities, and was a fun way to pass the afternoon. He had been wrong on all counts. But in South Africa, so much of their daily routine was familiar to her and foreign to him. She had taught him to appreciate South African cuisine, how to not get shot on the streets of Jo-berg, how catch a cab (he tolerated that harrowing experience only once before immediately buying a car). She played chess with him not because it was interesting, but because it was one thing from his world that he enjoyed, and unlike his cheesy romance novels, it were something the two could do together.

So she had taken him up on his offer every day it was presented to go poolside in their bathing suits and relax under the sun. Only it wasn't relaxing for her – she fought _hard_. From that first day she told him not to go easy, not to let her win. And she never did, for the ten months that they spent at that pool in Sun City. But damn if she didn't come close sometimes.

She still didn't believe that it had made her any smarter, but she enjoyed playing. It had almost become a pastime, and if nothing else it made her feel more bourgeoisie. It was something she could say at a cocktail party. And it brought her closer to Yohn. For what seemed like the thousandth time in the past ten-or-so hours, she had to remember that when she returned to Thabazimbi, to their little shack in the mountains where no one could touch them, Yohn would not be there to greet her.

In frustration she threw the table to the wall in front of her, knock the chess board to the floor and tipping one of the chairs over. It almost landed on the dress, which she had thrown in a heap to the ground in frustration. Fire gathered around her, beating with her enraged blood pressure, and she clawed to it desperately before it could release on its own, making sure she didn't singe the table. Instead, he threw it at a wall, shaping it into a wave of flame that crashed against the black and white tile (all of which was tinted in the red of her glasses). The fire dissipated as soon as it touched the wall, leaving ash charred onto the wall – all of her anger amounted to nothing more than cinder. She had absolutely no desire to get up. They couldn't _make_ her participate, and obviously Apocalypse needed her for something. She'd get out eventually.

It was at this point that something began to glow from the table. Something underneath was showing up as a bright white square. She pulled the glasses up above her eyes, and watched as the square disappeared. Quickly lowering and raising, a tinge of a smile came to Sin-je's lips. She had found the first clue.

She scrambled over to the table on her hands and knees, not bothering to get up. Her hands felt along the underside of the desk at where she had seen the white square, searching out what was uniform to the naked eye but so different in red. There was just a slight bump where the square should be. Now driven by this new discovery, her eyes and mind focused on this one unusual, single detail, putting out all thoughts of Yohn and Thabazimbi and Love and Flicker.

_Where did that come from?_

She heated up her finger and pressed it to the square, burning away the wood. Smoke began to fill the room, clouding her vision, as the entire bottom of the desk charred. Finally, beneath her touch, a hole appeared, growing to reveal a compartment in the underside of the table. Inside was a large key with a skull on the head. Success! She would be out of here in a matter or moments.

She forced her fingers into a claw and wrenched the key out, already to her feet and running to the door. As soon as she reached the wall, she remembered. There was no door on this side – so why would there be a lock? She scraped, she groped, she pounded the wall, but there was nothing. Sin-je plopped herself back on the floor, defeated. There were no other locks in the room that she could see. Now that she had seen the underside of the table, she had covered every square inch with and without the red glasses. She had counted, recounted, and rerecounted the chess board, she had visualized it with chess pieces. No locks.

Which meant that the lock wasn't in this room. A very sudden and nauseating fear pulled at her stomach. This was not the only room – after she solved this puzzle, there would be more, harder, more twisted than a fucking room of chess. Which meant that the screw, the chess board, anything and everything could be related to the _next_ room and not this one at all. She rose to her feet and walked dejectedly towards the dress, dropping the key on top of the mess of orange silk.

She spent some time propping the chair and table back up, and as she set everything as it was, two blocks seemed to slide away. They simply rose into the wall, one black and one white panel blending into those above them, revealing behind a hidden compartment. Inside was a small wooden box. Inadvertently, without doing anything in particular other than giving up, she had discovered clue number two just as casually as clue number one. Chance was on her side today.

Sin-je sprinted to the box and reached out a quick hand to grab it. It took two – the thing was roughly the length of her arm. On top was a row of buttons, numbered one through five – no hints as to a code, no keyhole for her key, nothing. But it was a box. And now she was looking for two things; a lock and a combination.

Her hands felt along the inside of the panel, hoping beyond reason that there just might be a secret door behind the secret door. No success, but she wasn't out of options. Pulling the glasses down onto her eyes once again, all of the pieces finally began to coagulate into a messy goo of sense. _32514_. It shone bright white on the back wall of the small compartment in the red of her lenses. It was a beacon of understanding. It was the first thing she had come to that was not purely coincidence, and so she was damn proud.

Quickly punching in the code, Sin-je's smoothly lifted the lid of the box in a move she had perfected a long time ago, reaching just her ring finger down and sliding it up with her whole hand. The top was off, and its contents were staring up at her. Another piece that made sense – a wooden plank the length of the box, with a hole in the bottom. The hole was covered in metal spirals, as though something should be screwed into it, but she hadn't needed to look to know that. Two steps and she was back at the table, back at the chess board, and back at the pin that eagerly awaited the new jigsaw piece. She spun the plank around its new axis until it finally tightened. It didn't, but instead reached a level where it simply kept spinning. It was only at this point, with the wood piece sitting horizontally across the board, that she realized she had no idea what she had expected to happen once it was tightened. This was not a lock or combination or code or secret panel or compartment – it was just a board, with a tiny little wall screwed on. Nothing could _ever_ come of it. South Africa could never be his home, he would always want more. But he had held himself back, agreed to live the simple life with her, never knowing that she herself would want more, too. Had he felt betrayed? Was that why he left? She had always held him back, and he agreed. The one time he wanted her to do the same, she had ignored him. He hadn't left – she had. He was still waiting back in Thabazimbi.

Her hands had been idly spinning the piece of wood back and forth on the board, its position always separating the square into two equal halves. Two pieces of a puzzle, two halves to a board. If there was a connection, Sin-je couldn't fuse them together in her mind. It was back to the red glasses – they had solved everything so far.

She checked the secret panel again. _32514_. Something in her was disappointed that the number hadn't changed. Something else was upset at herself for thinking it would. _32514_. Nothing else. No diagram, no instruction manual. Nothing that remotely resembled the chess board besides, of course, the walls, floor and ceiling. _32514_. It clicked.

She turned her fingers back to the top of the plank. Her nimble fingers spun it around the board three times to the right, twice to the left, five to the right, once to the left, and four times to the right. Her eyes were focused on nothing but the bored, and her mind was already racing with what might happen when she finished. Maybe it would open the door to the next room. Maybe it would reveal a keyhole, and there was no other room. Wouldn't that be great?

Nothing happened.

She had planned for this – already she had begun the same pattern but starting in the opposite direction – three to the left, two to the right, five to the left, one to the right, four to the left. At least she knew this was definitely the answer. The other could have gone either way, but now that they had been eliminated, she had one more step under her belt in this disturbing funhouse.

Nothing happened.

_Fuck_.

So she was back to square one. Or two or three or four. She began to plot another plan. It may not do anything, but it might make her realize whatever it was she was missing. Another quick count confirming what she already knew and she was off. She spun a chair around and swung her legs over, straddling it backwards and staring at one of the walls. It started with a spark at the tip of her index finger, and extended in a small column, a fingernail of light yellow and red flame. Just enough to char, not enough to burn. Carefully, she began to trace numbers, starting at the corner just above where she believed the door to be – of course, in a room where all the walls and ceiling and floors looked the same, she had lost her sense of direction, and only regained it once the panel had opened. One. Two. Three. Just as before, the tile showed no damage, but the ash stayed on the walls, marring the surface enough for her to count. There were 384 squares in the room – each corresponding to one of the 64 numbers on the chess board. It was a challenge, but Sin-je already knew she wasn't going to number all of them. Tedium was not her thing. And after all, they had to let her out _sometime_.

Didn't they?

She was on the second row, at number eleven of sixty four squares on just the first wall, before the numbers began to form in her head. She knew that there was no way in _hel_ she was going to number 384 black-and-white tiles. She pulled herself off her chair, one hand on the back dragging it to the wall. He would've been impressed with how much she had learned from just a year.

Balancing herself on the chair and her tiptoes, her hands just reached the bottom of the upper-tiles. She hoped it was enough. She pressed the numbered tiles in order, not getting a response, but deep down _knowing_ that once the code was put in place, something new would happen. After the two, she had to move the chair to get to the five, then again for the one, and one last time for the four. Her fingertips outstretched to press the last tile, each one filled with anticipation, and a certain degree of desperation. They clenched down on the ashen 'four' – and nothing happened.

Cursing herself, she hopped off the chair already realizing her mistake. She was working on the wrong wall – there were three left, and she only had to number them each one through five. _That,_ she was willing to do. The wispy fire shot from her index finger like a large pen towards the next wall. It was less than a minute later, just as she was drawing the bottom curve of the three, when she heard Fugu's unmistakable voice wailing past outside.

"….ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR…….." and it trailed off as quickly as it had begun.

In her surprise, Sin-je bounced off the chair and threw her body towards the voice. Her foot caught at the leg of the table and brought it down, or rather, it brought her down, the black and white tile approaching faster and faster with something orange splayed across it. Mercifully, she landed face first on her dress, her mind racing with ideas. If Fugu was nearby, then perhaps he had also been locked up. Perhaps he had his own puzzle. And just maybe he was there to help her. But that meant that Flicker was locked away too. The image of his violently childish face trapped in a room like this one stung more than the fall. Dazed and overwhelmed, Sin-je did the only thing she knew how to. She screamed for help.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" It hardly came out as strong and rallying as she wanted it to, intermixed instead with her own choking gasps of air. From the fall, from the thoughts, from the dress, from the memories. She was being suffocated by the past in this room, when all she should have been focused on was the chess board that had fallen off the table with her, and perhaps the walls as well. Something nagged inside of her that she wasn't going to solve this puzzle, that she needed some fresh eyes, an outside look, someone that wasn't down the rabbit hole with her. And if that had to be Fugu, well, then it had to be Fugu. She screamed again, and this time, was greeted with an answer.

"Sin-je? Where are you?"

The voice came from behind one of the two walls that hadn't been marked yet. And…possibly from above? She rose to meet it.

"Fugu! I'm in here! Get me the fuck out of –"

Her command was cut off by a large growl from the same direction.

"What the fuck was that, hey?"

"There's a tiger out here with me."

"A _what_?"

"A tiger."

"Why did you bring a tiger?"

"I didn't bring it, it followed me."

"Can you get me out of here?"

"Where are you?"

Sin-je threw up her hands in frustration, motioning towards the room as though he could see. "In _here_!"

There was silence from outside, save for a much softer and perhaps more sinister purr.

"Fugu?" she asked, her voice lowered from her initial yelling, almost to a level where she didn't expect him to hear her. But he responded.

"I think I found the door." It came from behind the other unmarked wall. So he was moving around her – that was helpful. "It has a handprint on it. Do you see it?"

She scanned the wall blocking his voice but didn't see anything remotely resembling a hand. "No, I don't. Can you knock on it? Or put your hand on it."

"I'm kind of tied up at the moment!"

Another loud roar, this one less patient. He really did have a tiger outside, didn't he?

"Look, I have all of these puzzle pieces in my room –"

"So did I, and I'm guessing so does Flicker. We all have to work together to get out of here, but I don't quite know how. Tell me what you have in your room."

Sin-je turned back to take roll, as though she hadn't just spent an hour of aggravation in the room. "Lots of chess!"

"Chess?"

"Yea, chess! All my walls and ceiling and floor look like chess! And I have a chess board, with a little wooden plank attached. And a wooden box with a combination that I opened, and a key, and my dress." She put her hands through her hair, exasperated, and felt the glasses. "Oh, and some red glasses."

"You said you opened the box?"

"Yea, with a combination."

"What was the combination?"

"32514"

"And what does the key go to?"

"I have no idea." Her mind began to shift into the realization that the three were working together, that perhaps the key didn't belong in her room at all. "Maybe it opens Flicker's door?"

"Maybe. Anything else?"

"A desk. Two chairs. The chess board is on the desk."

"Do you have pieces?"

The tiger seemed to inhale a pine cone, the rattling of its voice reverberating off the walls.

"No, just an empty chess board."

Fugu was silent for a moment. She took the opportunity to ask questions of her own. "Where were you, hey?"

"In a little rainforest."

"And you kept the tiger as a pet?"

"Sure. Have you heard Flicker's voice since you've been locked away?"

"Flicker's _voice_?"

"Yeah."

"No, should I have?"

"I don't know, he talked to me in my room, but I couldn't talk back."

Something large fell outside.

"What was that?"

"The tiger."

"Falling?"

"He's trying to jump up and get me."

"Where are _you_?"

"Hanging from the ceiling. Listen, I'm going to go and try to find Flicker. Maybe he'll have the answers we need."

"Wait, before you go," _and take your tiger with you_, "what did you have in your room? You know, besides a tiger."

"Medallions. Four of them, I had to place them like a code. Lots of trees and vines." There was a pause. "A treasure chest at the bottom of a waterfall. I think that's it."

"What was in the chest?"

"Don't know. Never got it open." The tiger's scream was deafening. "I'm out of here, good luck."

The leaping pace of the hunt was the only sign that Fugu had indeed left to go find Him. _What the fuck? It's not like he's the fucking chosen one!_ Sin-je was taking in the room again, trying to reconfigure every thought she had been thinking in the past two hours or so. So much could have had nothing to do with getting her out of her own room, it could be all to release him. It seemed as though Fugu had a good memory – hopefully something she said would make sense wherever Flicker was.

She relaxed her body, now aching with anticipation and the day's journey, and laid her back down onto the cold black and white floor. Exhaustion finally took over, flooding her mind and purging it of any thought she had of maybe, possibly, doubtfully finishing the walls. They were yet to yield a solution so far, and she would rather just wait for Flicker to come to her, with the answers to her own room.

Slowly, more pieces began to congeal into a solution. If the key opened Flicker's room, it meant that she would have to get out first. Unless another panel could open to the outside, but that was unlikely. So that solved the key, but what about the piece of wood screwed onto the numbered chess board? She had almost added the dress into her list of unanswered questions before remembering she had brought it with her. Instead, it raised a thousand new ones – where had Yohn gone? Was he still in Thabazimbi? She had never been one to rethink her actions, it built insecurities and made future feats impossible. And yet here she was, for the first time in her life, doubting herself. Maybe he had just taken a walk. To blow off steam? But where had he gone that he had taken the car?

What if she was completely wrong about everything? What if he hadn't left at all, but was kidnapped or something worse? And how was he faring in his _own_ room? Did it look anything like a gameboard? Or perhaps more like an ecosystem, like Fugu had said?

She knew she wasn't thinking about Yohn anymore, but it didn't ease the pain.

Shuffling outside announced her new visitor even before Fugu spoke.

"Sin-je?"

She sat up while crossing her legs, "I'm here."

"So this is what Flicker has: an intercom, which I think is what he used to contact me. A series of symbols, but it was used for my room, and I doubt they have another purpose unless you have some medallions you aren't telling me about." There was a hiss signaling the _other_ guest outside – why had he brought the tiger back? "He has a wall that keeps rotating, a small nook off of his square room, and a door lock that he thinks maybe needs a circular key. And that's _it_. Any ideas?"

Sin-je's eyes went to the chess board. "Yea…I think so. My chess board is controlling his wall."

"Come again?"

"The wall isn't rotating now, is it?"

"Not when I spoke to him."

"That's because my chess board isn't a chess board at all. It's a diagram of his room. Remember the wooden plank I told you about?"

"Yes?"

"I think that's his wall."

Fugu was silent, and even the tiger seemed lost in thought. How could she have been so stupid? And the spinning and turning that she had been doing? All of the times she had knocked over the board? What had that _done_ to him?

"Listen," she continued, "the board is numbered. Does Flicker have any numbers in his room."

"No."

"So the only numbers involved are in my room? The code and the chess board?"

Again there was no response.

"Fugu?"

"What about the number five." It was a statement, not a question.

"I have a few of them, why?" There was a 5, a 15, 25, 35, 45, and all the 50s on her chess board. And then of course there was the code. "I'd say there are about 15 of them in here – there are 64 numbers on a chess board."

"No, just the number _five_."

"Why?"

"There was a snake coiled up like an 'S' or maybe a '5'. Is there anything special about the five on your board?"

Sin-je ran over the board, energized by this new purpose, and poked and prodded at the square marked "five". She pulled down the red glasses and examined it, so close she could inhale the numbers, _be_ the numbers themselves. She slammed it back down on the table, sending the loose plank spinning around. And she immediately regretted it. Thinking about him for just a moment, she screamed over to Fugu.

"Tell Flicker to number his floor!"

"What?"

"If the board is his room, then the numbers correspond to the floor in his room."

Fugu was excited for the first time since she had met him. "He _did_ mention square tiles on his floor –"

But Sin-je's commands overpowered him. "Tell him I'm going to slowly rotate the wall so he can access the entire room, and to find all eight tiles that are fifth from the corners, against the wall. See if he can do anything with them!"

There was no response. Instead, she could hear a yawn, and then something slowly starting to move again. The tiger was on the hunt once more.

Sin-je pulled a chair up to the table and studied the board for just a brief moment. Her hand was heavy on the mini-wall, now knowing that she had such an innocent life under her power. By slow increments, she moved the wall around the center, somehow knowing that she was being too cautious, that he could take it, that if nothing else she was delaying the process. But she didn't care. She wouldn't take the risk.

She had been spinning for about a half an hour before her door opened, and a giant tiger leaped into the room. Sparks of fire began to gather around her and shot from her entire body just as the tiger bared fangs for the kill. A column of light ripped through the room and door, spilling into the hallway, billowing in either direction like a cloud. When it had stopped, there was barely a trace of any animal. Instead, Fugu was standing in the doorway, holding a dismembered and bloodied hand like a club.

Fugu was halfway out of his rainforest when he heard the yawning of the tiger behind him. He had spent too much time dilly-dallying and not enough time drugging the damn animal, and now he was going to have to pay for it. He didn't turn around, didn't want to lose any more of his lead, but the thumping behind him offered a gauge of just how far that lead was. The foliage, the creepers, the large palm barriers – everything united to delay his exit just long enough for his predator to kill him. His hands groped in front of him, trying to navigate his body through the humid vegetation. It felt like hours, but seconds later he was at the opened metal door, trying to shove it closed on the tiger.

He threw his entire weight – although it wasn't much – against the door, his panic growing as every second passed, as the bounding tiger's footsteps came closer and closer, louder and louder, faster. Just looking at his pace and his predator's, he knew that the rusted door wasn't going to shut in time. And yet, he kept trying, digging his shoulder into the metal bars, his feet failing to find friction on the ground. He had to make a choice, he should've made the choice when he first got out of the room – he needed to run, to find someone else who could kill the tiger rather than just temporarily incapacitate it. Flicker was somewhere, locked in a room, with the tools he needed to kill this damned creature. Once that was done, they could think about getting Flicker out himself. And maybe Sin-je was somewhere, as well.

As soon as he made the decision to abandon the door, the tiger burst through the opening, making the decision for him. Fugu ran, the blood and poison flowing, pumping, beating, keeping time to the rhythm of his feet, the rhythm he had to keep up or else he was done. Something would happen, a slip, a question about which way to turn, a moment's hesitation, and then he'd almost die. But somehow, he kept it up, screaming the entire way down the halls to try to find the one that had saved his life. It was time to return the favor.

"FLICKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR."

Another corner, and a pipe appeared running along the ceiling. He leapt up and grabbed the pipe with his hands using the momentum to carry his legs upward. And now he was crawling, slowly, but out of reach from the tiger.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" It was stifled, choking, coming from somewhere behind a wall, but it was a woman's voice. It shouted again, shorter but clearer.

"FUGU!" It was Sin-je. Not the one she was looking for but it worked. The voice definitely came from behind an unmarked, unmentionable wall. So, she was trapped too.

"Sin-je? Where are you?"

"Fugu! I'm in here! Get me the fuck out of –"

Her command was cut off by a large growl from the tiger. He was pacing below Fugu again, getting tired of the chase.

"What the fuck was that, hey?"

"There's a tiger out here with me."

"A _what_?"

"A tiger."

"Why did you bring a tiger?"

"I didn't bring it, it followed me." Stupid girl. _Right, I brought a tiger_.

"Can you get me out of here?"

"Where are you?"

"In _here_!"

There was nothing that he had to work with, so slowly, he crawled along the ceiling until he turned another corner. The tiger followed, impatience deep in his eyes.

"Fugu?", her voice had lowered from her initial yelling, almost to a whisper.

"I think I found the door. It has a handprint on it. Do you see it?"

"No, I don't. Can you knock on it? Or put your hand on it."

"I'm kind of tied up at the moment!"

Another loud roar, this one less patient. This was not going well.

"Look, I have all of these puzzle pieces in my room –"

"So did I, and I'm guessing so does Flicker." He was getting upset with her ignorance. Of _course_ she had puzzle pieces. But he wasn't going to let it show. "We all have to work together to get out of here, but I don't quite know how. Tell me what you have in your room."

"Lots of chess!"

How was that supposed to help? Didn't she know he needed specifics? "Chess?"

"Yea, chess! All my walls and ceiling and floor look like chess! And I have a chess board, with a little wooden plank attached. And a wooden box with a combination that I opened, and a key, and my dress." There was a pause. "Oh, and some red glasses."

"You said you opened the box?"

"Yea, with a combination."

"What was the combination?"

"32514"

"And what does the key go to?" _Like a lock?_

"I have no idea." Another pause. What was she doing? "Maybe it opens Flicker's door?"

"Maybe. Anything else?"

"A desk. Two chairs. The chess board is on the desk."

"Do you have pieces?"

The tiger seemed to inhale a pine cone, the rattling of its voice reverberating off the walls. It was getting tired. Good.

"No, just an empty chess board."

Fugu was silent for a moment. What could all of this chess have to do with anything? If he was to get Flicker out, he would probably have to get Sin-je out first. Unless there was a hole somewhere she could give him the key. If she was left in there, he really wouldn't care.

"Where were you, hey?"

"In a little rainforest."

"And you kept the tiger as a pet?"

"Sure. Have you heard Flicker's voice since you've been locked away?"

"Flicker's _voice_?"

_Isn't that what I just said? _"Yeah."

"No, should I have?"

"I don't know, he talked to me in my room, but I couldn't talk back."

The tiger leapt up and swiped a paw suddenly, but missed Fugu by a large, safe gap.

"What was that?"

"The tiger."

"Falling?"

"He's trying to jump up and get me."

"Where are _you_?"

"Hanging from the ceiling. Listen, I'm going to go and try to find Flicker. Maybe he'll have the answers we need."

"Wait, before you go, what did you have in your room? You know, besides a tiger."

"Medallions. Four of them, I had to place them like a code. Lots of trees and vines." He thought for a moment. "A treasure chest at the bottom of a waterfall. I think that's it."

"What was in the chest?"

"Don't know. Never got it open." The tiger's scream was deafening. "I'm out of here, good luck." He didn't wait for a reply. Shuffling across the ceiling, his head dangling down to check on the progress of the tiger trailer him. He had memorized the pathways only to his room, and only from the ground. Now, trying to find Flicker was going to be accomplished only by total and complete chance.

He had given up screaming Flicker's name in an attempt to save what little of his lungs were left after a rather long coughing fit. Even the tiger at that point looked sympathetic. But Fugu continued on, listening for clues as to where the Horseman of War might be. That clue was a loud pounding coming from the left side of the hallway, accompanied by some blood-curdling screams.

"GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"

"Flicker?"

"Who is that!"

"Flicker, it's Fugu calm down." The tiger had curled up below him, apparently now content to nap rather than eat. "Tell me what you have in your room."

"Fugu! How did you find me?"

"Listen, we'll have time for that, but right now I have a tiger out here that's taking a quick cat nap, and I'd like to get out of here before it wakes up. Tell me everything that you have in your room."

"Ok! Look, I'm actually in a square room, only I can't see all of it at any given time. There's this fucking wall that keeps rotating, and it cuts the room in half. I haven't been able to detect a pattern. That and some kind of intercom man, in a little nook? This shit is fucked up!"

"Flicker, listen carefully. Your intercom allowed you to communicate a message to me. You gave me the order of four medallions, and then four more. How did you figure out that order?"

"With the guy and the shark?"

"That's the one."

"It's written on the back of the moving wall – and that's all!"

"Nothing else that seems like it could be used in a puzzle?" He _had_ to have more – otherwise, the answer was right in front of them all, and something inside Fugu doubted that. Flicker must have the answer.

"Not a thing. Well, except this door."

"Where's the door, Flicker?" Why did he have to lead everybody to the answer? Why couldn't they just figure it out themselves?

"It's not the door I came in, but it's the only door I see now. It has one of those knobs like those machines at the grocery store, you know? That you put a coin in?"

Fugu thought for a moment. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The ones that you get the little toys from?"

Fugu shook his head, then remembered that Flicker couldn't see him. "Listen, is there anything else at all in your room. Anything special about the walls? Floors? You mentioned when you spoke to me over the intercom that the floors were weird?"

"They're just these large squares. Like, stone, and old, to look natural, but they're _too square_. Other than that – I've got nothing."

"Thanks Flicker. Hang tight."

Ever so slowly, Fugu began to creep along the ceiling pipe, his arms starting to sag with exhaustion. He was hoping beyond hope that the tiger would not rouse, but almost as soon as Fugu had reached the first intersection Flicker's incessant pounding and cursing. A bright orange and black ball bounded down the hallway, skidding past him as it realized it was missing the action. And the chase was on once again, Fugu waiting for the cat to give up and go home, the tiger waiting for Fugu's arms and legs to give out. And neither was letting go of hope.

His return to Sin-je's room was much easier.

"Sin-je?"

"I'm here."

"So this is what Flicker has: an intercom, which I think is what he used to contact me. A series of symbols, but it was used for my room, and I doubt they have another purpose unless you have some medallions you aren't telling me about." There was a hiss signaling the _other_ guest outside – why had he brought the tiger back? "He has a wall that keeps rotating, a small nook off of his square room, and a door lock that he thinks maybe needs a circular key. And that's _it_. Any ideas?"

There was a short pause. "Yea…I think so. My chess board is controlling his wall."

What the fuck? "Come again?"

"The wall isn't rotating now, is it?"

"Not when I spoke to him." _Was it? There wasn't any noise. It sounded ok…_

"That's because my chess board isn't a chess board at all. It's a diagram of his room. Remember the wooden plank I told you about?"

"Yes?"

"I think that's his wall."

Fugu was silent, and even the tiger seemed lost in thought. If it was a diagram of his room, perhaps there were other clues that she was totally unaware of? Perhaps she needed to rotate it in a certain way so that Flicker could access a part of his room he was yet to see?

"Listen," she continued, "the board is numbered. Does Flicker have any numbers in his room."

"No."

"So the only numbers involved are in my room? The code and the chess board?"

Were there? How could he have been so stupid! The snake – it wasn't an "S" , it was a "5". Suddenly, he began to reevaluate every single thing in his room. Nothing was there out of chance. It all had purpose, and all of those clues he had given up on – the pulsing mechanical vine, the treasure chest, even the fucking tiger – everything had a _reason_.

"Fugu?" Why was she so impatient?

"What about the number five." It was a statement, not a question.

"I have a few of them, why? I'd say there are about 15 of them in here – there are 64 numbers on a chess board."

Had he asked for every time the digit five made an appearance in her room? "No, just the number _five_."

"Why?"

"There was a snake coiled up like an 'S' or maybe a '5'. Is there anything special about the five on your board?"

There was a pause as the tiger licked its lips and stared up at him, questioningly. The curiosity was sickeningly cute. Suddenly, a slam came from inside Sin-je's room.

"Tell Flicker to number his floor!"

"What?"

"If the board is his room, then the numbers correspond to the floor in his room."

Perhaps he had underestimated her. She was beginning to demonstrate her worth. "He _did_ mention square tiles on his floor –"

But Sin-je's commands overpowered him. "Tell him I'm going to slowly rotate the wall so he can access the entire room, and to find all eight tiles that are fifth from the corners, against the wall. See if he can do anything with them!"

So she had settled the matter. With the tiger trailing behind him, Fugu's tired limbs began scaling the ceiling once more. He made fewer mistakes, no wrong turns – but still there were times that the tiger felt something odd, and so tried, just for the sake of trying, to jump up and catch its prey. He was at Flicker's room before the fifth try.

"Flicker! Is your wall moving now?"

"What? Fugu? You back?"

"Is your wall moving?' He annunciated every word, hoping it would clear the walls.

"I can't hear you, the wall is moving! Come around to the other side I found a slit to talk through!"

A slit? At least he knew that Sin-je was right about the wall. There was really only one way to go in the chamber that made _sense_ – up to the intersection in front of him and then left. But then again, nothing had really made sense in the pyramid. He tried it anyways, and was relieved to find what Flicker was talking about. It was as though one brick had been removed from the wall, and peering through it were huge brown eyes.

"How did you manage this?"

"Beat the fucking wall enough, something is bound to happen. The wall is going slower than before, but it's still going. I have a few seconds before it comes back around. What the fuck is going on? Did you find her?"

Fugu rolled his eyes. Teenagers in love are kind of disgusting.

"Look, she's controlling your wall. This is what you need to do. Check all the floor tiles along your wall that are five from a corner." Flicker's eyes disappeared from behind the slit. "Look underneath them, press them, jump on them, _do something_. Just figure it out. See if you can break them, or maybe flip them, or switch them. I'm really only guessing the number five because there was a snake shaped in a five in my room, and the board Sin-je' has is numbered. We just can't figure out which direction your room faces, so there are a lot of options for where that five square is. Does that make sense? Flicker?"

The tiger huddled against the wall in fear of the horrifying scream that came loud and clear from Flicker's room. The cursing that followed it wasn't much better.

"WHAT THE MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT IS THIS! FUCKING COCKSUCKER! SICK, MAN, SICK! FUCKING SICK! AHHHHH!"

"Flicker, what the hell is happening in there?"

"FUCK! GOD MOTHERFUCKING _DAMN_, YO!"

"Flicker! Calm down, tell me what's going on!"

"MY HAND, MAN! IT'S MY MOTHERFUCKING _HAND_!"

"You'll have to explain better than that, Flicker." Was he bleeding again? Fugu had wondered how, with the loss of so much blood, and without a bandage, Flicker had managed to survive this long.

"IT'S IN HERE! WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FLAMING, FLYING FUCK?"

Fugu's stomach twisted as he realized what the next step to the puzzle was.

"Flicker, I need that hand."

"SHIT NAH! I AIN'T TOUCHING THAT THING MAN! THEY TOOK MY _HAND!_ FROM FUCKING _NEW YORK CITY!_ IT'S ALL ROTTED AND SHIT!" There was a short pause. "FUCK!"

"Flicker, Sin-je is locked in a room just like you are. The key to her door is _your hand_. I need it. Pass it to me through the slit in the door."

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!" The stream of curses finally stopped, but only for a moment. Both Fugu and the tiger leaned in to see if he would start up again. He did, but it was softer.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfufufufufufu –" as his voice drew closer, faster, and louder, there was a sudden pop that send the hand flying through the door and onto the ground beneath Fugu. For a moment, he thought of using the distraction that had won the tiger's attention to flee, that maybe he could lose the tiger in the catacombs of the pyramid and be done with that puzzle piece. Then he remembered that he actually needed the hand. He was in much worse shape than he previously anticipated.

He had read in stories, and occasionally heard people on the radio (he did not watch TV), refer to moments that seem to last forever, those crucial instants that drag on, and in which everything becomes clear. He was yet to experience one such moment, truly, and this was no exception. Those who could slow down time – through their mutant powers, so that the moment was _indeed_ stretched out, or just by sheer will power – would have seen Fugu drop from the ceiling, as he himself noticed. But they also would have seen the other things occurring which Fugu failed to observe; Flicker, rolling away from the approaching wall; the tiger bending his mouth down and clamping his jaw on the now tinted-blue hand; the man at the end of the hallway who had turned the corner and then, seeing all of this, quickly jumped back into the shadows, the same man that had led Flicker to his room; the panic in all of their eyes, Fugu's, Flicker's, the man in the shadow's, and the tiger's, about what would happen in the next elongated moment. They may have seen all of these things, those people that can make a second last a lifetime. But all Fugu saw was the approaching hide of fur.

Immediately the tiger began bounding down the hallway, the hand firmly clenched in its jaw, Fugu's legs clinging to the sides as his body bucked wildly. He searched around for a way to solve the problem – the ceiling was too high to grab onto and hold the tiger in place, there was nothing to grab onto on the walls, he could barely walk his hands to the tiger's mouth to touch the hand. Slate and stone and beige upon beige raced by him, light and dark passing him as the interspersed wall torches appeared and disappeared as quickly. One thing that _was_ helpful was that the tiger was heading towards Sin-je's room. So it wouldn't be too much of a race once he got the hand. Of course, that all depended on getting the hand.

The hallways started to become more familiar, and he knew he didn't have much time. He had managed to wrap his hands on the underside of the tiger, so that he was holding on with all four limbs for dear life. Every time he would let go to worm his way up, he would begin to lose his grip, and would immediately fall to the tiger's back once more, in the same place if not further back. It had been an exhausting few days – the Sentinels had drawn out everything he had in his body, and already he was tiger racing. The repeated coughing did not help, rattling his ribs. His arms, which at this point felt like they wanted to fall off the bone, reminded him of a lesson he had learned long ago, and only just recently thought of however many hours ago he was in New York. Hand over hand was for those who didn't know what they were doing.

Bracing his feet against the hind legs of the tiger, Fugu inhaled for concentration, and perhaps for the last time. If he failed, he would be tiger food. If he succeeded, he still might be – he had to hope the tiger would go after the new prey and ignore the old poisonous one. And with one single, fluid motion, Fugu propelled his entire body off of the tiger and landed with his legs straddling the head. He saw the handprint fast approaching, and didn't think or plan or even consider. He wrenched the hand free from the tiger's grip and slapped it against the wall, swinging a door open and leaping from the tiger's back to the ground. _Go! GO!_ It was times like these he wished he was a psychic.

The tiger took the bait, and turned sharply into Sin-je's room just as Fugu made his exit. A flash of light illuminated the entire hallway, for the first time showing faded hieroglyphics up and down the corridor. It was eerie and beautiful and remarkably peaceful. Getting to his feet and walking towards the light, he felt almost entranced by history. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sin-je, staring open-jawed and wide-eyed at him through the doorway.

"What are you waiting for? Let's go get Flicker." Without changing her expression or closing her mouth, she nodded and walked out of her room casually. As though she hadn't been locked inside for over an hour now, as though she could have left any time she wanted. Back when Emma Frost was making her splash in the New York circuit, she had carried the same air around her, as though she owned every peril that life threw at her. Fugu had had the pleasure of dealing with the White Queen, as she was called now, during her drug trading days. Now she was high finance, and Fugu did not doubt that it was because of that aura. Perhaps Sin-je could be powerful one day, if she could muster the will, and get over her naïveté.

But he didn't tell this to her, because it would undoubtedly swell her head. Instead, in silence, he led the way back to Flicker's cell, now very comfortable with the paths he was taking. About halfway there, Fugu realized they didn't quite have a way of getting him out of his room. But he figured something would _have_ to present itself upon their arrival.

"Flicker, are you there?"

His eyes appeared at the slit. "Fugu? Yea, I'm…"

Sin-je interrupted, screaming, her face a mix of pathetic maturity and youthful sincerity. "I AM SO, SO SORRY! I DIDN'T KNOW!"

"About?"

She looked honestly stunned by Flicker's reaction. Frost would never have let that show. "The wall?"

"Right. No worries. How are we getting me out of here?"

"Describe the lock to me again."

"What happened to the tiger?"

Fugu nodded to his side, indicating Sin-je.

"Right." Flicker's eyes flitted down behind the slit, and then were up just as quickly. "It's like one of those things you put a quarter in, and you turn it, and it gives you a cheap little toy. You know what I mean, right Sin-je?"

"I have no fucking clue. But we're looking for a coin?"

Flicker rolled his eyes. It was _his_ fault at being a poor describer. "Sure. Find me a coin."

Sin-je turned to Fugu. "So, how about that treasure chest, hey?"

Something in Fugu kicked himself for not making the connection. Of _course_ the treasure chest. "It's at the bottom of the waterfall. I can't get to it."

"I'm sure there's a way. Lead the way." She gestured for him to move, pointing in the wrong direction. He pushed her arm aside and took the other path down the T intersection.

The walk back from Flicker's was a little different, and for a bit Fugu was concerned he had made a wrong turn somewhere in the labyrinth of the pyramid's hallways – and he certainly wasn't going to tell Sin-je that – but eventually he found the room, in probably more time than it should've taken. He swung open the door to the rainforest, just as he had left it. A knot twisted inside him. He really hadn't wanted to see this place again.

"The waterfall is at the end of the room, down the hill. Come on."

Sin-je stared at everything in wonder, which while he supposed he had done it when he first arrived, he still berated her mentally for it. It was a fake rainforest, in a fake dungeon, with a fake waterfall in a fake valley. It was hardly impressive the more he looked at it – leaves had been thrown haphazardly on the ground, and there were not enough to cover the stone floors; the five trees in the whole room certainly didn't give the impression of a canopy; the air was dry, no doubt from outside in Egypt where they were, and not the Brazilian humidity that Apocalypse was trying to imitate. But still, the wide eyes came back and she lost her footing more than once looking anywhere but where she should have been.

A few moments later they stood at the stone inserts and medallions at the foot of the waterfall.

"It's down there. Even if you can reach it, it's too heavy for us to haul up."

"Well, do you have anything in your room that might lift it up?"

"No. Did you?"

"No."

They stared down at their reflections, which themselves weren't paying attention, but were rather clearly wearing expressions of confusion and worry. The taller, gaunter, paler one started to seem more energized, flowing with the ripples as the water crashed down, rather than the dark one which seemed to stagnate. Finally, Fugu had an answer. It was a stretch, but it was an answer.

"Could you evaporate this pond?"

It took Sin-je a moment to process, but she finally forced her eyes to meet his. "I…don't know? I've never tried it before."

A slight smirk came to his lips. He made no effort to hide it. "Try it."

He could feel the air around him begin to heat up, and began to barely make out tiny flakes of red stirring up by their feet. They began to spiral up and around Sin-je, as though building a storm which she was the center of. Each one that kicked up was slightly larger, and the ones in the air would begin to pulse and grow with each pass around her body. Soon they were the size of dimes, quarters, fists, continuing to grow. Fugu could no longer see her, but he knew her eyes were still closed in concentration. She was trying.

One by one, balls of fire the size of watermelons left the rotation and hovered slowly towards the surface, flattening just above the water. As each left, another ball replaced it an inch away from Sin-je's body. How she didn't burn from that Fugu didn't understand. But then again, Flicker wasn't dead yet either. Apparently this job would require many feats of the unnatural.

The pond shimmered reds and oranges back at them, covering the surface entirely. Smoke and steam mixed together in the air and rose to the vine-covered ceiling. Even those vines had allowed for gaps where metal could be seen. If this didn't work, there was always that one vine which had seemed to be a plastic tube connecting liquid from somewhere below to somewhere above. Everything had a reason, a purpose for being there. Sin-je's wooden plank, the snake in the shape of a five, the slit in the door to Flicker's room. Everything.

Sin-je collapsed to the ground as the fire around her suddenly collapsed onto itself. He ran over to her and knelt down to feel a pulse. Still alive, just too weak to do anything else. That was fine, she had done what was necessary. The pond was drained, but already slowly filling up thanks to the pour of water coming from above. Fugu leapt down and ran towards the chest. They were looking for a coin, and this was as reasonable a place as everything. Plus, everything had a reason.

His fingers fumbled at the lid, searching for a way to open it and claim the treasure before the waterfall drowned him with it. His feet were entirely submerged in water before he found the small keyhole located in the front. More pieces began to come together – they would need Sin-je's key, which she had undoubtedly left in her room, in order to open the chest. But by the time he ran there and back, the water would have risen too high to accomplish anything. He had to drag the chest onto land, and fast.

There were two handles, one on each short side of the chest, and so Fugu picked one at random and threw his weight in the opposite direction. The chest barely moved. Something inside shuffled – hundreds of somethings, if Fugu was correct. They were whatever was weighing the chest down and preventing his escape. He let out an audible grown. Inside were hundreds of coins, and only one of them would open Flicker's room. His mind began to race towards possible solutions before he reigned it in and forced himself to consider his situation. _Get the chest out first, then worry about what's inside._

"FUGU! GO AND GET THE KEY – IT'S SITTING ON TOP OF MY DRESS IN MY ROOM! HURRY!" Lost entirely in thought, Fugu clearly missed something. Sin-je was not only awake, she was sending a steady jet of fire upwards into the waterfall from directly below, stymieing the flow. He didn't give himself too much time to think about it. The girl was right – he had to go get the key.

Fugu's legs were not meant for the exhaustion he had forced them to endure. He was used to fence climbing, to city-street acrobatics, to quick sprints down alleys and into the next safe house where he could buy some time. Now, as he made the eighth room change since this entire riddle had begun, he cursed himself for never working on stamina. Anyone could have told him it would come back to haunt him. If they had told him it would be because he'd be unable to complete a sadistic puzzle buried deep in the Pyramid of Khufu, he might not have believed them. But at least they could have told him.

When he arrived at the room, he was not alone. The one who he believed had been called Sinister was standing above the table, spinning a wooden piece around and around with his index finger. Fugu didn't think – he was suddenly standing in front of those horrible red eyes as his fist flew through the air. It landed in Sinister's grasp.

Drops of milky green began to ooze from Fugu's skin as Sinister squeezed harder. Any hope Fugu had vanished as Sinister cocked his neck and stuck out an abnormally long, blood red tongue, sucking off the poison like it was holy water. He pulled back, flashing a set of triangular teeth that seemed to sit together like a zipper. Fugu supposed that it must be his way of smiling.

"It's not a good idea to leave valuable things unattended." Fugu could feel Sinister's breath on his face as he gave the order. The scene seemed to drag, Fugu unsure of what to do next, only knowing that time was important (and that Flicker, while probably hurt, wasn't unfamiliar to danger and so could wait). Sinister was enjoying it. Abruptly, he through down Fugu's wrist and casually walked out of the room. Fugu held in a cough until he was sure that Sinister had left – as the footsteps vanished, he wheezed in agony, mucus spitting across the floor. Board later, key now.

The key was exactly where Sin-je had said it would be, sitting on top of the orange dress she had brought with her on the plane. For just a split-second, Fugu took the opportunity to get acquainted with the room. He was surprised at his own confidence in Sin-je's retelling of the room, but he quickly suppressed it and took account of the pieces. There was the board with the plank, of course. There was furniture – a desk and two chairs, as she had said. The walls and floor and ceiling certainly mimicked a chess board. In the back was a slight recess though which she hadn't mentioned. There was nothing inside, but perhaps it would become necessary later on in the puzzle. After all, nothing suggested that just because all three were released from their rooms the torture would end.

Double checking the key in his hand, Fugu sprinted back to the rainforest room. Change number nine left him with more questions. Fugu understood the underworld better than most, knew that there wasn't a chance in hell all of Apocalypse's minions got along, and so necessarily assumed some form of subordination always took place. But was what just happened sanctioned or against the rules? If Sinister was playing the game, then were Death and the man who seemed to take charge earlier? Or Cortez? Or even Apocalypse himself? Sinister's interruption, while frustrating, seemed to lack a point. All it served to do was send Flicker into a manic run for his life. It certainly didn't stop the puzzle, or hinder it in anyway. Would that be what the others would do?

And hadn't he left the door unlocked after he had left? The entire thing could happen again, could be restarting right now. But he didn't have time to turn around again – he didn't know the extent of Sin-je's control over her powers or how long she'd be able to hold the water.

Apparently it wasn't long enough. The chest was already halfway consumed by the waters that continued to crash from above. Fugu flew through the jungle, throwing himself down the large hill as he struggled to maintain his breath, landing on both feet in the water, the impact sending a slight jolt through his spine. But he didn't stop, until his left hand was on the top of the chest, the right fumbling to insert the key into the lock.

"Took you long enough, hey! Hurry up! I can't hold this much longer!"

There was a click, barely audible to Fugu's ear and no doubt crushed beneath the deafening roar of the waterfall in Sin-je's. And so what should have been a sound of relief, a signal that there was some hope in the matter, that there was something to cling to, was lost on both of them. Fugu knew what awaited them when he opened the chest, and Sin-je had not even heard it. With a grimace, he flung the lid open. He winced when his suspicions were confirmed.

Inside were hundreds of golden coins, all of slightly different sizes, from about the size of a fist down to a nail head. Some looked ridiculously identical, until they were placed on top of each other, when a slight size difference became apparent. They couldn't take all of them, and Sin-je wouldn't last as he carried shirtfulls at a time down to Flicker.

Immediately, he began to organize the coins by size. He would give Flicker the middle coin and ask "too big or too small?" and that would remove half of the options. He'd repeat the process until they found the coin. It was tedious, but if he worked quickly it could be done. It could be done. He had to repeat that several times, as each time he pulled a handful of coins out and placed them in order on the floor of the pond, obscured by the murky water that was now almost at the brim of the chest, more coins caved in from the side and made it appear as though he had done nothing. But logically, the plan would work.

"GRAB MY GLASSES!" Fugu looked up in disdain at Sin-je, whose body was now entirely soaked in water. She had already _used_ her glasses, why did she need to keep them?

"JUST HANG ON, WE'LL BE OUT OF HERE SOON. GIVE ME ANOTHER….TEN MINUTES, MAX."

"GRAB MY GLASSES, HEY! USE THEM TO FIGURE OUT THE COIN!" Was she on crack?

Fugu picked up the 20 or so coins that he had ordered so as not to lose them to the water's flow and ran over to Sin-je beneath the rain fall. The bizarre pyrotechnics seemed like a stand holding up a giant umbrella, and the outline of a circle of water crashed around her. This was so entirely ineffective, but it was the only option they had. Fugu pushed himself through the water and into the heat-sealed eye of the storm.

"Hurry up! The chest is almost covered!" As though he didn't already know. But now was not the time to bring up her insolence – he snatched the glasses from her head and placed them on his face, wiping away the drops of water that had accumulated. He glanced down at his hands and saw about 20 coins, golden and tinted with red. What was he even_ looking _for? He huddled the coins to his chest and burst through the water once more.

As he approached the chest, he kneeled down and dropped the coins into the water as they spread out from each other. Cursing himself for his carelessness – he didn't know this stunt was going to work at _all_ – he began to dig through the remaining coins. There were hundreds, if not a thousand of them. And beyond a slight red tint, they all looked the exact same. As he burrowed, coins began to spill over the edge, the smallest ones floating away, the largest sinking like stones. At this point, if these glasses did not hold the key, they would have to start all over with evaporating the pond again. How long would Flicker last if Sinister came back? How much time did they _really_ have to complete this?

A glint caught his eye and brought him back to realtime. It was just another coin, about quarter sized. Only there was a glowing white hieroglyphic, an eye of some kind, with a short line coming down the side and wide, curling eyebrows. He had seen the image before – the Eye of Horus. Quickly adjusting the glasses, he saw that Sin-je was correct. The image only appeared through the lenses. They had their key.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!"

Sin-je turned around, startled, and saw Fugu waving the coin in his hand. The fire above her hands disappeared as she began to run, the waterfall seeming to suck into itself before a large explosion. There was a slight pause, and then the burst of water began to pour into the pond, galloping towards Sin-je. She threw herself at the banks, just at Fugu's feet. They were safe. And they were almost finished.

Flicker paced back and forth in his room, his growing impatience about whatever was happening. The wall had begun to spin manically, and he had taken shelter in the small nook where the intercom system was. He couldn't think of any reason why Sin-je would want to hurt him so bad. There was a connection, that unfinished something that happened on the plane. It was beautiful, but now as the psychotic South African probably stood poised over the levers that controlled his fate, he couldn't help but wonder if she felt that same connection.

It was quiet in his room now, a silence that seemed to echo throughout the entire pyramid, one that reverberated to the very top of the triangle and come all the way back down to him. Small squeaks, the buzzing of insects, and just about anything else served to remind him only that he was alive and so very alone. The wall had stopped in the backwards position – that is, he could see the fish, the lizard, the cat, and the monkey. They were large hieroglyphics that covered the entire back panel of the wall. As much as it had turned, Flicker hadn't been able to see them until he hid in the intercom-nook and let the wall pass him.

He knew that on the other side were the counterparts to those symbols, more evolved versions of each of the species. They had not been there originally, they had simply appeared after he shouted the first series into the speakers. Fugu thought they had something to do with wherever he had been trapped. Both of them were out now. They just had to fucking free him.

Curses flew through his mind, disrupting his peace. He knew that he came off as violent to some, but it was moments like this, when he was alone with his thoughts, that he was truly harmonious. There wasn't much that could anger him in such a state. Of course, the end result of the wall's recent revolutions was that it blocked off his access to the door, the lock, and the small communication slit. But he would cross that bridge if and when Fugu and Sin-je came back.

His right arm hung limp by his side. Since more or less the beginning of this whole prison room ordeal, he had lost feeling up to his shoulder. The cold numbness was spreading into his body. He could feel the line just above his right breast where the temperature dropped, where there was no longer a sensation. It was a freezing burn, but somehow didn't hurt. His body was beginning to shut down, and not because it was in such pain; it just simply didn't care anymore. Flicker didn't really blame it.

In the silence he was struck with the question of where his life had turned wrong. He had been a promising competitive shooter. He was well-off. He had a loving family. He even had a few prospective girlfriends. He had just finished up a year of school – of _good_ school, of the kind of school that made people into Somebodies. His powers were such that he could hide them in a veneer of talent, so that nobody would guess there was something unnatural about him. He wasn't blue, he wasn't large, he wasn't extraordinary. He was just a little above average in everything he did. And that's where he had wanted to be.

Now, he was trapped in a room, in a pyramid, in the middle of a desert that was halfway around the globe. His father was dead. His mother and sister were as good as dead. He was missing his right hand, and so would have to relearn everything in life – how to eat (his stomach growled at this prospect – he hadn't eaten in almost 24 straight hours), how to write, how to shoot. How to live. The university had no doubt realized that he would not be coming back after being imprisoned in a mutant concentration camp and so filled his space with some other sapien.

At least in New York he had _some_ fucking clue of where he was. And the hope that he could return to everything he had. Now, he was going to die. He threw his body down to the tile where his hand had been kept from him; the cool air was still floating up from the dry ice that had preserved it. He tried to make himself, begged himself to feel. Only half of his torso felt the chill, the individual beats of sweat freeze themselves to his skin. He should be doing something – checking more tiles, or pushing at the wall, or screaming through the intercom, or the hundreds of other things he had tried while trapped in this room. He didn't _know_ that the others were coming back. He should be working for himself. Or, he could just end it here. What were the events in his life that had brought him here? Which decision was it that, had he said "no" (because he said "yes" way too often), he wouldn't have come here, wouldn't be in this bizarre position he was in now. What was it? What the _fuck_ was it?

"Flicker! We have the key!" Sin-je's voice sang through the walls. "Come to the door and get it!"

"That's great, except you BLOCKED ME THE FUCK OFF! I can't get to the door anymore."

He heard some talking outside, but couldn't make it out.

"WHAT?"

"Just hang on, Flicker. We're going to get you out in a second." This time it was Fugu. They were so close. Maybe after all this, he'd get his fucking hand back.

The wall began to slowly rotate around, approaching him gently. He could see the door, and all but threw himself at it, desperate for his key. Fugu's eyes disappeared from the slit, and were replaced by a deathly white hand, dropping a coin to the floor. The wall locked in place. No more danger. No more trouble. This was the endgame.

Flicker bent down and picked up the coin, a smooth, flat golden coin with no markings at all. He placed it in the slot and turned the knob, deliberate, careful for once in his life to not break the only key to his escape. There was a click, and the door swung open. He was free. They were all free.

Sin-je raced back down the hall again, her mind no longer anxious to see Flicker. She had only one question on her mind. Fugu had been the only one to return to her room. He was going to be the one to answer.

She turned the corner and saw him, along with Flicker, Cortez, and the one who could pass for Fugu's twin, standing in the now well-lit hallway. They had won. She didn't care.

"What the fuck happened to my dress you fucking son of a bitch!" She ran up to Fugu and shoved his shoulders back against the wall before repulsing at the thought of what she had done. She looked down at her hands in horror, disgusted by the toxins that were probably running through her.

"Relax, you're safe. Although you might feel a little dizzy in a moment." Fugu looked down at her. "And I didn't do shit to your dress. I left it in your room."

"Well it's not there, hey!"

The other pale man coughed, forcing her to realize that she was surrounded by her superiors. "Listen I hate to break up the mood. But we are not finished here. Remember your place," and here he looked tellingly at Sin-je "and we will show you to the changing rooms."

"And what am I supposed to change _into_,exactly?"

He ignored her, but could ignore Flicker and Fugu, their questioning stares supporting her rage. She at least was _supposed_ to have her dress. They had nothing.

"Your rooms have been filled with new clothing more appropriate for your tasks in the future. You will find what you need inside."

Flicker's eyes lit up. "We have rooms? That means we passed! We're Horsemen!"

The pale man shook his head. "I'm sorry, I misspoke. They are not your rooms yet. The ceremony is not complete, but for your stay here, however long that may be, they are for your disposable." He paused. "They are guest rooms, nothing more. Gryphon, Fulton, your rooms are next door to each other. Follow me. Peyper, Cortez will show you to your room." Cutting himself off, he turned on his heels, expecting that his frail frame and gaunt look would demand obedience. From everyone in the hallway except her, it did. Flicker and Fugu fought to get in line behind the man who was already walking away, and Cortez had already begun heading in an opposite direction. Sin-je had to roll her eyes and chuckle inside – this whole thing was so ridiculous. She immediately knew that Apocalypse had to be a white man, and there hadn't been a girl to step foot in this pyramid since he started calling it home. Or whatever the fuck he called it.

Keeping track of her place in the pyramid became at once a difficult task. The turns she could manage: if the pyramid were simply a grid, she would know exactly where she was. But hallways curved, staircases wound deep into the earth, and there were no markings; after only four minutes of walking, she was entirely lost. There was no way she could find her way back to Flicker's room. Old room, she supposed. He had a better one now, with at the very least a wardrobe. And hopefully a stationary wall.

"Ms. Peyper," Cortez spoke up, "I don't think you quite understand what you signed up for. Apocalypse is the most powerful mutant on the planet. He is going to liberate us all, from the Sentinels and their creators."

"Humans? What does he have against – ?"

"He will give you immense power, but that is because it is _his_ to give. Do not think that he will tolerate your insolence as much as Caliban has."

Sin-je kept her mouth shut. Information was key. Fugu's mysterious doppelganger was named Caliban. As long as he kept talking, she could learn more.

"But that is because Caliban has his own plans. Chalk it up to Brutus complex." He turned around in the middle of an unmarked hall and stopped her, his hand brushing against her chest. She took an uncomfortable step backwards. "Apocalypse knows this, too. He's given me the…unpleasant task of keeping an eye on Caliban's movements, but I simply don't have time for this bullshit. It's why he has horsemen. And since you're in desperate need of punishment, I think that this could work to our mutual benefit." He contemplated this for a moment, and then nodded in ascent. "Yes." Cortez spun on his heals and continued walking.

"You are to follow Caliban everywhere he goes – when he leaves the complex, when he eats, when he showers, even when he meets with Apocalypse. The Great Lord will test me on information he knows for sure, which will undoubtedly come up in his meetings with Caliban, so I need to know everything. You will write this all down at night and leave it on your nightstand. I will collect it before sunrise." He stopped at a large wooden door. "Ah, here we are." With one hand braced on the wall above him and the other on the knob, he threw the door open to reveal yet another chamber.

Sin-je was reluctant to step inside again. "It seems to me that you trust me an awful lot. If I give you the wrong information, you could be fired."

"The only thing I _trust_ little girl is that if you give me the wrong information, _you_ could be dead. And I _trust_ you don't want that to happen. Someone will be by in roughly an hour to collect you. It is a formal occasion – please dress the part." Without making sure she was in her room, without locking her inside, without even saying _what_ the occasion was, he left her standing by the open door.

Sin-je peeked her head inside to see her room. It was certainly much larger than what she had been locked in for the day. Fake window screens placed in front of large light bulbs lined the far wall. A large, Victorian four-post bed jutted into the room from the left hand wall. Next to it, closer to the door, were two large wardrobe closets. Caliban had kept to his word. A writing desk down on the right side of the room, complete with a matching carved beryl wood desk chair, completed the furniture in the room. There wasn't much, but what there was was extravagant. Lush purple down covered the bed, which brought the height up to her stomach. She would have to work to get up and in it, but it looked too comfortable to be real. Pillows, each a different pattern, climbed from the back almost down to the footboard. The wood detailing matched the chair, the desk, and the wardrobe closets. It was as she approached that they also matched a small nightstand placed on the far side of her bed – the nightstand that she would have to use every night to keep Cortez placated. It seemed like a scam, like something didn't hold water, but what could she do? Who could she complain to?

There was a door in the back right corner, but before she searched out her surroundings, first things first. She flung open the wardrobe doors – secretly hoping to see her dress, but finding no such luck – to determine what she had to work with. The outfits were incredibly varied: a long, flowing white gown that was only one more ruffle from being a wedding dress, a furred yellow parka with a long red collar that separated from the coat and draped in the back (for what, she had no idea) and of course the large snow pants and boots to match, a brown spandex top with sleeves that came down to the wrist and a collar that came up to the jaw-bone, a black negligee with just a bit of mesh that would barely cover her cleavage. The swim wear was even less abashed, a piece of teal floss that would show either one side of her vagina or the other to everyone watching, and a top that didn't support anything, but instead consisted of a small strip of fabric no wider than the length of her pinky. What exactly it was supposed to do puzzled her. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there was a wetsuit, and on a shelf above it rested a snorkel mask, fins, and she presumed whatever else she would need to go diving. Except an instruction manual. A forest green windbreaker, complete with pants that buttoned on the side and could be peeled off at will. Two little black cocktail dresses, one sweeping down almost to her feet, the other barely ending at miniskirt length. A pastel pink pair of slacks, with a silk black scarf already looped through as a belt. A tank top with a print of some painting on it – Yohn hadn't taught her much about art, and she had only occasioned to steal bits and pieces (and never anything famous), but it looked like a Picasso, if she had to guess. Tight spandex leggings in orange, red, and black. A blue and purple slashed cloak, with strings at the top that would tie around her neck. Quick examination revealed that there were pockets sewn into the cape's back, and that it could be tied around the waist as well, perhaps to prevent it from flapping in the wind. Although a cloak without flapping seemed pretty pointless to her. A knee-length skirt made entirely out of peacock feathers. A bullet-proof vest. A fitted blazer with a camouflage pattern. Before she could continue, a shudder ran down her spine as two large hands pushed down on her shoulder.

"Shhh." She could feel his breath on her shoulder, in her ear. It caught her breath, and she could feel her brown skin becoming red, not with fire, but with arousal. "Be careful tonight. Caliban, Sinister, and Cortez can't be trusted. Trust only your instincts."

Sin-je turned to catch Death's lips with hers, but just as they touched he pulled his head back a fraction. None of the pressure was released, he had done nothing to back away from her. He had just placed himself out of reach.

"You're going to meet him tonight. Don't worry, you'll do fine. And if things get hairy, just come to me."

She lowered her voice to a whisper to match his, even though she had no idea why they were whispering. It was intimate, it was something meant only for the two of them. But certainly Cortez wasn't waiting around the corner. Or was he?

"What do you mean, 'things get hairy?' What kind of trouble are we in, hey?"

"No trouble, just be careful." He nodded to the other large wardrobe she had yet to examine. "Why haven't you opened that one yet?"

She giggled – the whispering began to seem like their little secret, and she was eight all over again. "I haven't gotten there yet, silly. I have to finish this one."

He nodded. "I'm not your pick-up, Sinister is. He'll come in a little under an hour. Hurry up and get ready. I'll see you at the ceremony."

"No more tests?"

"No more tests." He let go and all but sprinted out of the room. His presence, however, lingered, refusing to leave her mind, her room. Whereas both he and Cortez had left her with the impression that they would always be there, Death's had been more powerful, more assertive. And, of course, less creepy.

This of course left her now with only fifty minutes to get ready after the most trying day she could imagine living, and with nothing terribly appropriate for the occasion. She could tell, just by holding up the longer black dress that it would hardly flatter her figure – it demanded a tighter stomach and much smaller boobs. At the very least, before she changed, she would have to wash. Perhaps more exploring was in order.

The door at the end of the room opened into a small bathroom, barely large enough to fit a standing shower, sink and toilet. Nothing had ever really compared to the bath at Sun City – nothing really ever would – but it worked, and in all of her experiences Sin-je had come to find that she had always seen better, and always seen worse. There was a pang of remorse when she first acknowledged that fact – she hadn't even truly finished her childhood, and yet she had already experienced everything there was to life. Sex. Love. Death. Joy. Poverty. Hunger. Satisfaction. Need. What more was there?

The cold, golden tile of the shower felt wonderful against her naked skin. She closed her eyes and let the water just envelope her, making absolutely no effort to wash herself, to even move. She would fall asleep if she wasn't careful. As tired as she was, that small little hint of pride that she had struggled to maintain during her tryst with Yohn (_was that all it was? A tryst?_) began to swell inside her again. That distinct feeling of cool tile after a long hard day's work couldn't be replicated by anything else. It was just cold to shower off the work of another man, however well intentioned he was. It was good to get back in the game.

Of course the accommodations in the bathroom were minimal. None of the products she needed for her hair, not even a curling iron or a blow dryer. She would suffer for it in less than an hour. No lotion, even though her skin was already starting to ash in the dry dessert air. Apocalypse and the others would have to make do; if they wanted formal, they should've planned ahead.

Wearing her towel around her body, she returned to the wardrobes. She remembered that she hadn't opened the second one, and thought for a moment that the dress appropriate for the occasion would be waiting in there, along with red patent leather stilettos, a suede bomber jacket, a white button-up with black pinstripes, and a sailor's uniform. It would be on par with the rest of the oddities. She flung open the door, and realized that she was only partly right.

The appropriate dress was _indeed_ waiting for her. The only dress in the wardrobe, resting on a single hanger, was her orange silk. Wrinkled, a little dirty from the floor, but beautifully displayed. It was an easy choice to make. She slipped on the dress, and discovered off-white satin pumps waiting for her underneath, the same shade as the lilies. So that's why Death had asked if she had checked the wardrobe, but how had he known to get the _shoes_?

As she finished adjusting herself in the bathroom mirror, the door swung open without notice. Sinister's disgusting face sneered at her, and for a moment, Sin-je wasn't sure if she was _supposed_ to notice it in the mirror's reflection. "Let's go. You've still got a while to go yet."

Twisting the dress to make sure that the embroidered vines were not off-balance, she took a deep breath to let Sinister wait his turn. Flicker and Fugu may be ready, but clearly these white people didn't understand Africa time. And as long as they were in Egypt, they were still on Africa time. She still had fifteen more minutes, as far as she was concerned.

"I still have to do my makeup, give me a second, hey?"

She lifted her mascara brush up to her right eyelid. Suddenly, a gust of some kind of wind through her arm down and made her fingers release the pen, rattling into the sink.

"_Now_."

She could fight him. But she would probably lose. It wasn't worth the effort, and if they didn't want makeup, then really, they didn't know what they were talking about when they asked for a formal event. Frustrated, she tucked the mascara brush under her sleeve – in case she had more time, wherever she was going – and walked to the door.

"Well?" She asked. He was clearly waiting for her to leave the room first. It was a safety, so that he could make sure she didn't stay in the room as he left his position guarding the door. But she wouldn't give him that courtesy. "Let's go!"

Sinister rolled his eyes and walked out, confident that she would follow. And she did. The hall outside her room was _much_ wider than those above, she imagined it could very easily fit two cars driving past each other. The ceiling was higher as well, supported by tall construction beams that enhanced the appearance of an underground highway. Sin-je had no doubt that there were mysteries upon mysteries in the pyramid, things that would take years for her to discover. But she would make her first project understanding this road system, where it went, whether or not it went outside, what its purpose was, who its regular customers were. And fuck Cortez's demands.

The walls were practically lined with metal doors, each barred and braced and undoubtedly leading to their own secrets. Prison hall lights were affixed to the ceiling, shining a fragmented, dingy halo every few yards. They gave her just enough light to see without making her own, but she still readied the flames, just in case. Once again, she was separated from the group, and once again she had no idea what to expect – they would not lock her in another room without a fight.

Sinister began to veer left, across the hall, towards yet another metal door. The sparks started to become visible, swirling around her like children protecting their mother, coming to her aid.

"Relax. No more puzzles. Get inside." He turned the knob and swung the door open, his arm gesturing her inside.

"You're not coming in with me?" She flirted, batting her eyes obnoxiously.

His grin wiped any sense of arrogance she had from her body. "I wouldn't miss this part for the world." To prove himself, he stepped inside, the door remaining open behind him. Before entering, she peeked her head inside. There was a table, no chairs, nothing else. The walls were made entirely of metal, a steely blue that ran to the ceiling and floor, and up from the floor into the table.

"Have a seat," he said, without looking back at her.

She paused for a moment. "Where?"

He pointed at the table.

She was on tip-toes as she entered, afraid of what might happen, suspicious entirely of Sinister. _This could very easily be another puzzle room, where Fugu has a chair and when we put the chair in front of the desk, a piece of paper appears and we can write Flicker a note. Or something bizarre like that. _One eye was on Sinister, making sure he didn't bolt for the door and then bolt the door. One hand kept a ball of fire tucked away behind her back, spinning less than an inch above her palm, waiting to be released or dissolved or otherwise set free of its existence. But slowly, ever-so-slowly, she made her way to the table and sat down.

Another smile crept into Sinister's face, as though it started as a pucker and slowly spread out into his cheeks. "Good."

And for all of her deliberation, she could never have been prepared for what happened next. A force not unlike that she had felt in her room through her back down on the table and stretched out her legs. The fire she had been holding at once became smoke, pushing its way out from between her and the hard metal. Gears began to whirr, and leather straps appeared restraining her wrists and ankles, a final one emerging and forcing her neck back down. And the door was flung shut with a _slam_ that must have rung through the entire highway.

His opening move was impressive, but it was time for her to strike back. New fire had already gathered around her body and was launching itself towards Sinister. Her throat, hands, and feet became furnaces struggling to singe the strap enough to break free. Lava was spilling from her open pores, flooding out of her body and onto the floor so that soon, her position on the table would be the only safe place in the room.

The fire disintegrated on Sinister's chest. His voice was booming, filling the space with its reverberations. "You _fool_! You've pledged your life to Apocalypse, and yet here you lie defiant still!" The lava was up to the top of his boots. He seemed not to notice. "Understand your _place_, little one – it is to serve not only Lord Apocalypse but me as well, to _serve_, do you understand? Do you truly understand what this word means? You are MINE, Sin-je!" Sin-je was so distracted by her attempts to get free that she hardly noticed the small infrared beam coming down from the ceiling and shining on her trashing forehead. "That's it, throw more fire at me. What do you hope to accomplish? You think we hadn't planned for your arrival, that your straps aren't fireproofed, that this metal will _melt_? What? What are you hoping for? _Escape_?" Volcanoes began to erupt from the ground, spewing lava and earth and ashen soot. She was starting to lose control. "Enough of this bullshit! You can't do _anything_ to me! I am invincible and you are _nothing_, Sin-je Peyper, but a pathetic orphan who killed her family, who can't live except by destroying the lives of others. You don't exist for yourself – you're a parasite on society, and it will _end now!_" The room was getting too hot, she could feel her body start to whine in agony. The dress began to burn her skin, and she could feel the marks that it was leaving. "Stop these stupid parlor tricks and _submit!_"

The flames disappeared, the fire stopped, the room snapped back to a comfortable temperature, and for a moment, everything was ok. Then, it began to fade away into white.


	6. Epilogue End of Part I

Epilogue

Four days in the jungle had been a joke to Zoe. The Friend's of Humanity's patrol had only come remotely close to her twice, both on the first day, and she was more than capable of outrunning humans. On the second day, she made a break for the coast, only to stop just at the tree line on hearing the helicopters above. Plural. There were easily seven or eight in the sky, searching the tiny island of Genosha. And if that seemed a bit much in a hunt for one person, on day three they rolled out the tanks. _That_ was overkill. Zoe didn't really consider why the Friends were using archaic technology ill-suited to the jungle. She just stayed hidden, outrunning the soldiers, the choppers, the beasts of machinery, and whatever else Creed could throw at her. For a botched mission, she had been having too far too much fun.

It was on that fourth day that she saw yet another guard patrolling the coast on a dune buggy. They were starting to give up; the guard was alone.

"Hey," she had shouted, making sure to stay in the shadows. Predictably, the guard hopped off the buggy to search for who had called to him.

He was at the tree line when she shot him twice in the face.

Cursing herself for making so much noise, and for taking yet another life, she stripped the guard and threw on his clothing. As a uniformed guard, she sped away down the coast, pulling out her cell phone and praying to call that there was cavalry to call.

"Charles." Zoe hunched over the wheel of the dune buggy, waiting for him to answer, praying that she looked normal. "Charles, I need you." _Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who rescues us from our adversaries._

"Zoe." Charles' face came onto the phone.

"Shit, Charles, where the hell have you been? Hodge is here, Albert is virtually complete, I screwed up and blew my cover, and Creed is one creepy-ass motherfucker!." She added the last three words in English, knowing it would piss him off. _Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who teaches us to make light of trying situations. _

"Are you safe?"

"Unless by 'safe' you really mean 'still on the island and in full view of the freaking _choppers_ that are looking for me, no, I'm not exactly safe."

That set him back somewhat. He swore in German and left, to return two minutes later with a viable game plan approved from On High. God, she loved the government.

"Right, here's what you're going to do. Can you hold on where you are for a while?"

"How long is a while?"

"It will take us thirty-seven minutes to get a fighter pilot out there."

"I can do thirty-seven minutes."

"When our guys take out the chopper...swim like hell."

"That's the plan?"

"It's the best we got."

What neither of them mentioned was that he should have left her there to die. Sending help would alert the FoH that the government was breathing down their necks. Who knew what they would do. _Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who sends us people willing to risk everything to save our asses._

"Charles."

"Zoe."

"Anything you wanted to say to me before I die?"

"Yeah. Don't."

"Hey Charles."

"Zoe..." he was getting frustrated.

"When did you learn German?"

He hung up. Sleep deprivation will do the most remarkable things to you. Zoe nearly fell off the dune buggy giggling.

Thirty-nine minutes later – the Israeli government was notoriously late – the explosion marked her cue. It was time to get wet.

She plunged into the water and swam, entirely unsure of her direction. She knew that the island of Genosha lay two hundred and thirty-seven miles off the south coast of India. She had memorized this fact without much thought in her prep work; it was just one more piece of useless information. Of course, if she was not swimming north, she would be swimming many, many more miles to Antarctica. Or perhaps to eastern coast of Africa, or around the world to another port of call.

Four days in the jungle had been humorous; four days in the peaceful water, with not a soul in sight, and Zoe was beginning to feel frustrated. Not physically tired, of course, but emotionally exhausted. The hunger was gone, the thirst threatened to rip her throat apart. She had had visitors, but whether real or not she simply didn't care. For one entire day, the ocean had turned to blood, but the porpoises that she had swam with didn't seem to mind. It was at the end of the fourth day that Zoe finally forced herself to realize that she didn't know at all where she was going. She decided that she would swim until she died.

Her next thought was waking up. It meant that she had actually slept, which despite all of its potential dangers in the water, was a welcome blessing. Steady realization came to her like a dripping faucet. She was on a couch. She was under a cover. She was inside. She was at Charles' apartment.

Zoe knew the space well, it was a small little living room with white walls, burgundy carpet, and horribly mismatched furniture. Six years later, it still looked like Charles was just moving in. The Tattinger painting was still propped against the wall, angled below the space it would never actually reside in. He had a small, black-and-white, rabbit-ear TV sitting on an ottoman that had seen better days – in 1934 when his grandmother must have bought it. It was all exactly as she remembered it. The gray chinchilla lapping at the hand she had thrown over the side of the couch was new. But beyond that, it was as though time had not touched the apartment.

Of the two bedrooms, only one actually had a bed, one that despite their on-again, off-again relationship Zoe had never actually lay in. Not even, as it seemed, last night. Or however long she had slept. She suddenly felt dizzy with her lack of knowledge – what day _was_ it exactly? Perhaps more importantly, how had she ever made it back to Haifa?

She went to the _other_ bedroom, the office, where Charles undoubtedly was. She opened the door to see Charles' back, his body facing a large screen and talking to a Hispanic man. In Spanish. His linguistic skills never ceased to amaze.

The man was speaking. "…pero si ella ha sido identificado, no hay nada que podemos hacer."

Only after some silence did Charles speak. Clearly, there was some degree of deference. "Sí. Comprendo. Voy a decirla pronto."

On the screen, a blonde man appeared in the background. "Tengo un reunión ahora mismo. Ciao."

"Adios."

And the screen went blank.

"When did you get a chinchilla?"

Charles spun around to see who spoke, almost jumping into the air. But he didn't let it hit his voice. "Chinchilla?" he asked, staring at her quizzically. "How much did you hear of that conversation?"

"I don't speak Spanish, Charles. Although I must say it's fascinating to learn that you do. So I guess that was the mysterious Agusto?"

"Something like that. Listen, Zoe, have a seat. We need to talk."

"No we don't. I'm off the assignment. I know that. Don't treat me like a child."

"I'm not treating you like a child Zoe. We need to talk about what happens _next_."

The image of Agusto Escobar melted away into ash, but it was too late. Pyro had already seen her.

"Well, well love, it's good to know you're up to your usual tricks. Who's the sorry wetback you've got locked away in a closet, eh?"

Mystique turned around to stare Pyro down. He was _always_ the first to back away. "Sometimes, Pyro, we only have to invent a new persona to get the job done. You should know that as well as any. Or is there a big demand for smut in South Africa?"

"They're Victorian romance tales, Raven, and for your information a dollar goes a long way in South Africa."

"Not when you piss it all away on some girl of the month. But I'm sure your double-crossing pay-off provided a quaint little slush fund for you and the Miss. That is, if she didn't steal it all out from under you. Is that why you're here?!" She tossed back her head and let out a single "hah!"

"Oh come on, love. In all the years you've known me, when have I ever let the _weaker sex_ get to me? All of her possessions – including what little she came to me with – were sold at auction in New York about an hour ago. Including a strand of her hair, a piece of glass with her fingerprint, and a framed photo. The buyer of those items was a dear friend of mine. A Mr. Guyrich. Says he has great use for 'em."

"And when I thought you had reached a new low by betraying Magneto, you continue daily to surprise me, Pyro."

He threw open his arms and plastered a disgustingly smug grin on his face. "It's what I live for love."

Mystique was ready to vomit. "Now what the hell are you doing here." It wasn't so much as a question, as a demand for him to leave. She should have tried harder. He obviously felt compelled to answer.

"Forget the Sentinels. Forget the Friends. They'll all be crushed in a matter of weeks. I recently ran into an old acquaintance. Wolverine stopped by at my house. We talked over tea."

"I don't care about Xavier and his pathetic legacy of freedom-fighters. In case Africa dulled your eyes-and-ears, Xavier has been reported dead. Wolverine is a slave without a master. He'll tire himself out soon enough. We can only hope that he does it by killing a few Sentinels."

"Oh he has a master, love. And it's not Xavier. Apocalypse has just entered the arena. And he's beginning to build an army. What _we_ need to decide is whether we help him this time, or stand by the sidelines and wait until his true colors come into focus."

At that moment, Mystique regretted very much sending her love to New York. She could use her advice at a time like this.

Destiny stood in O'Hare airport, looking at flights leaving for New York. Which

ones were safe? Which ones would be searched by the Sentinels? Which one would she inevitably fly on? Mystique had once asked her, "if you simply tell the future and can't affect it, why not just do what you do, and see what happens? Why play these games?" Destiny didn't have an answer then. She did now. It was the thrill of the game, the ability to play it out, the ability to connect the pieces of future images, future memories. It certainly made picking a flight more interesting.

Destiny found one and decided for it. She suddenly had a vision. She would fly on that flight. It would land safely in New York. The sentinels were…distracted? Excellent. Time to fly. She grabbed her carry-on, which was filled with the items that she had foreseen a need for, and walked calmly to the ticket counter.

The Healer knocked on the door to Gwynne's bedroom.

"You have a guest, Victor."

She sat up from her position on the couch, almost dropping her mug of hot tea. The Healer was smiling, which meant that it must be someone good. But who could have found her _here_? "Who is it?"

"She says her name is Rogue. She is looking for a girl of your description, but would give no name. I knew she meant you."

Relief waved over Gwynne. Rogue had made it safely out of Chicago and into New York. "Please, send her in."

The Healer motioned to someone outside in the hallway, and then bowed his way into the living room, shutting the door behind Rogue.

"Rogue! It's so good to see you! How did you _find_ me?"

"Ah still have a lotta friends out here." She turned quizzically towards the door.

"Di' he jus' call you Victah?"

Gwynne shook her head, holding the mug between both hands and smiling like a little child, almost chuckling. "It's a long story. I think I'm better now, although I can't really tell. I'm sure we'll talk about it later. So tell me, how's home?"

"Bettah than here. There are more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents patrolling the streets than NYPD. In fact, I haven't seen a cute man in tight blue since I got here yesterday."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. dissolved the regular police. They were all either let go or enveloped into the organization. You have no _idea_ how bad it is out here."

"So then why'd j'you drag my old butt out here?"

"What do you know about a man named Sinister?"

"You were attacked by Sinistah?!"

"Something like that. I'm still trying to make sense of it all. Listen, I've been searching the blogs and there's a rumor spreading around about some breakout from the camps. S.H.I.E.L.D., of course, is covering the entire thing up. As long as the Sentinels are distracted, I think we'll be ok."

"So where do we go from here?"

"The archives. We find out what happened to the others who brought your suit."

"And then?"

Gwynne took a sip from her mug. "And then I don't know."

Alchem hung back, unsure of where to turn as the alarm began to blare through the mansion. Although he was proud of the emblazoned yellow "X" on his chest, he knew of this building only through story and imagination. And, of course, the one room and hallway he had seen of the sub-basement were already producing a very different image than the mental one he had had for a month, throwing him off guard. The other two, however, seemed to know their way around.

Naze and Hank immediately sprinted towards the left, and Alchem reached for his holstered guns to cover their backs. The feeling of guns in his hands had become second nature – surprising for a man in his forties who had never fired one before a year ago. But then, thirteen years ago the world had changed. The gun in his right hand was a glock 9, a fairly self-explanatory weapon that hadn't required a lot of training on his part. Load. Aim. Pull the trigger. He had used it to kill a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative during his escapades as a homeless mutant in New York City. He had let the memory haunt him for only a week. Now, he was afraid that it wouldn't be enough if they came across a Sentinel.

The other gun was something altogether different. A 6-chamber classic revolver, modified to fit his needs by Naze while they spent a summer vacation in the sewers. The revolver didn't fire bullets, but rather tiny little vials wrapped in 40 feet of silver cord. A vial spinning from the chamber would unwind the cord around it, the tail of the cord catching at the end of the nozzle. Upon impact, the vial would explode in a mess of iodine, and then Alchem could really get to work.

Gunshots from behind told him that Hank and Naze had already found the new residents of the Xavier mansion. Alchem spun on his heels and fired between his two comrades blindly, the light from Naze's laser gun obscuring the hallway. He stopped when the sound of yelling and footsteps had ended. Three soldiers were dead in the hallway.

"There'll be more coming. At the risk of making waste, I suggest we split up to achieve our targets. Naze, head to the mansion security room –"

"I don't have the access codes."

Hank stared down at the floor, frustrated. He was the only one who could do everything in the mansion. The other two were just extra hands. "Ok, then, get to the Danger Room observation deck. The controls are simple enough. Turn the mansion against them with everything we've got. Alchem," he paused for a moment, realizing that Alchem had _no_ idea where he was going, "come with me."

Naze veered to the right as the hallway branched in a T. Hank bounded to the left, leaping into the air, occasionally grabbing a pipe above and pulling himself across the ceiling, mostly just galloping across the floor. And Alchem did what he was told, trigger-fingers ready. They were approaching a four-way intersection when Hank threw up a fuzzy-blue paw.

"If they are anywhere," he whispered, "they are here."

"So we cut through the walls?" Alchem ran over to an unmarked metal wall on his left. "Any idea what's behind here?"

"The war room. The door is down that hallway." Hank gestured around the corner to his left. Alchem was staring at him quizzically. "It's a strategic mission staging room." Another blank stare. "Large maps." Finally, Alchem nodded. Large maps made sense.

"You think anybody else will be in there?"

"Of course. Probably the commander. It's HQ, and one of the safest rooms in the mansion."

Well, why didn't he say so in the first place? Alchem tip-toed over to the other wall. "This one?"

Hank paused for a moment.

"Well?"

"It's either the wine cellar, or the medi-lab."

"So it's either deserted or full of people? Way to narrow it down Hank."

"Look, it depends. I don't remember how far down the wine cellar comes!"

Alchem could hear shuffling down the halls. The waiting-in-ambush soldiers were getting antsy. It was time to make a move. He put his hand on the wall and began to shake protons loose from the titanium wall.

"_Commander, I think they're around the corner."_

_  
"Well wait for them. Where else are they going to go?"_

The conversation from just beyond the corner so startled him that the wall suddenly disintegrated in a puff of smoke. The rancid smell of rotten eggs hit him like a wave. He had only made it down to sulfur, the other sub-atomic particles spilling off and reforming into water, making a puddle on the ground. They would smell it in a heartbeat. It was time to make a move.

Fortunately, the two had stumbled into the wine cellar. Rows and rows of wine racks ran as far down the room as Alchem could see. But Hank had only been partly right – they were not alone. Both of them heard the hundreds of muffled voices coming from every corner of the room.

Hank turned to Alchem. "Stay here, guard the entrance. I'll check it out and lock the far door." There was no question about the 'it' – the sounds of a hundred gagged men were so unsettling, he almost wanted _not_ to know their source. Better that Hank would check them out.

Which left Alchem at the door, reloading his sidearm. From his position, he could kind of see a guard, kneeling and aiming right where he was standing, seemingly without knowing it. Alchem could take the shot, and immediately alert the guards to his position, or he could hope that Hank would find another exit before S.H.I.E.L.D. got too antsy.

Or option C. From out of his field of vision came a scream. "They're in the cellar! GO!" He flung his back against the inside wall, already turning his gun to the opening and shooting. Five bullets that he hadn't concentrated on later, the wall behind him exploded in a burst of water flooding the hallway. Brown trench coat fanning out around him like a cape, the lapels pulling away to reveal the yellow "X" emblazoned on his uniform, he tumbled backwards firing a volley into a crowd of soldiers. He couldn't even count how many there were. Hitting them all wasn't _the_ goal – although it was a wonderful Plan B. He just wanted to be in the water.

Already, the water began to evaporate around the boots in the water, close enough that he could reach out and touch them. As the carbon-dioxide began to seep up like a cloud and surround the agents, Alchem spun his feet around to propel him upright and facing his targets. Another volley of bullets and Alchem reached for the lead pipes running along the ceiling. His hand didn't reach. It didn't have to.

Mentally feeling his way along the pipe, atom by meticulous atom, he found the area above the soldiers. He twisted his hand into a fist – not necessary, really, but a visual habit that Alchem had picked up when he was first developing his powers, something that helped him get over a lot of mental blocks. It came first as a single atom began to shake so vigorously that it threw off a proton and electron. Hydrogen came spinning to the ground as that one atom of lead became thallium. One more shake, and the thallium became a single drop of shining liquid metal. And then he let go.

The pipe seemed to hesitate before imploding into a heap of mercury, spraying excess water in every direction. But the deadly metal head straight for its target, digging itself deep into the skin of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Drop after drop fell onto pores, open cuts, and screaming mouths. Simple mercuralism might have taken a month or more to manifest itself. As the pipe continued to liquidate, as gallons poured into their blood streams, soldiers dropped to the floor, writhing and reveling in the loss of their nervous system. The ones behind, unaffected, gaped in horror. And put on their helmets.

"The cavalry is here, my friend!" Hank's voice came from inside the wine cellar.

"Hank! Stay put! Don't come out here!" Alchem quickly reworked the mercury on the floor into pure gold. He didn't have much time to concentrate – the other soldiers were already firing. "OK! Help!"

It wasn't Hank that emerged, but a host of other mutants – none of them over the age of fifteen. These kids were too young to be dragged into something like this. Were they the hostages? Then why were there only four?

He didn't have time to thing. Hank grabbed him by the shoulder, "let's go!" and whisked him back into the cellar.

"Who the hell are they?"

"Students at the school," Hank had resumed his bounding pace, forcing Alchem into a run to keep up. "They know how to deal with a few intruders."

They did? Ignoring their age, and their lack in numbers, and the fact that they probably weren't armed – did they really know how to deal with intruders, when it was obvious these same agents had managed to bind and gag the kids before throwing them in a wine cellar? There was a sudden explosion behind them. Alchem looked to Hank for understanding, but all he did was smile a toothy grin. At least someone knew what they were doing.

The two of them wound through the wine cellar towards the back, the _real_ entrance – not the one Alchem had created – tucked away in a corner and leading out into the hallway behind the battle. One last attempt.

"Hank, if we attack from here, we can help the kids and –"

"They know what they're doing, _Gordon_, now come on!"

At the fourth door on the left, Hank finally stopped. Alchem quickly took the opportunity to reload his gun. There was a keypad to the right of the door, and Hank's fingers seemed to wave a code over them, rather than actually hitting numbers. A green light flashed – _why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. change the codes?_ – and the door was pulled into the wall, disappearing amongst the steel. There were only three men in the room, and only two were paying attention.

Three shots from his right hand severed the guard on his left from his own firearm. A vial of iodine left the chamber of his left, spinning around an invisible point on its tip, a trail of silver smoke unraveling behind it. As it splashed across the soldier's Kevlar vest, Alchem pulled back on the revolver and tilted it down, wrapping the cord around his arm. No sense in working through the gun. The liquid splashed on the vest began to shake, one atom at a time, spinning off protons and electrons, water beginning to form around the soldier's feet. Iodine. Tellurium, Antimony, Tin, Indium, Cadmium, Silver. Here the cord joined in, beginning to pulse and shake itself, changing as the liqid changed. Palladium, Rhodium, Ruthenium, Technetium, Molybdenum, Niobium, Zirconium, Yttrium Strontium, Rubidium. Faster, faster. Alchem couldn't see the guard that Hank was attacking, or the man at the computer get up and search for a gun. Krypton, Bromine, Selenium, Arsenic, Germanium, Gallium, Zinc, Copper, Nickel, Cobalt, Iron, Manganese, Chromium Vanadium, Titanium, Scandium. Calcium. Potassium. Argon.

Chlorine. Alchem snapped back and dropped the cord, watching as the Kevlar began to crumble at the other end of the room. One final shot to the chest, and the man was dead.

A sudden blazing pain in his right shoulder brought him back to reality. He was bleeding. He had been shot. Alchem watched as Hank – now living up to his namesake of "The Beast" – took down the last of the men, the one who had been so unobservant to start with, the one who was holding a gun pointed straight at Alchem, to the ground.

"Gordon! Are you OK?" Hank ran over to where Alchem had fallen, his right arm hanging loose.

"I'll be fine. Take care of the damn computers already." Hank nodded and leapt back to the chair in front of the computer. There was clicking. There was whirring. Alchem understood none of it.

The rest went by as a blur. Hank picking him up and bringing him to the med facility, passing the dead S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers, the four kids already seeming to know what had happened, his own mumbles that he was fine, that they had a job to finish. He tried to force himself to convert the lead bullet into water, but couldn't summon the energy. Hank lay him on the table.

"Hank…go. Finish the job. You know I'll be ok. It's just my soldier...shoulder…"

Somebody entered towards his feet, but Alchem couldn't see who it was from his position.

"Gordon, shut up and lie still. We already won. The battle is over. The mansion knows how to take care of itself."

When he woke up, there was talking behind him.

Hank's voice. "How long ago did they leave?"

A man's, unfamiliar to him. "We split up yesterday. The four of us took the mansion, the other three to hanger. We were captured almost immediately."

Hank again. "And you haven't heard from them since?"

A woman this time. "No, but we missed our rendezvous."

Naze. "And?"

The woman. "If we anyone missed rendezvous, they were assumed dead and new battle plans drawn. Nobody is going to come for us, because nobody knows we're here."

Hank. "Well obviously we find Psylocke and the others and go from there."

Alchem sat up to look at the conversation. Naze was standing, his elbow resting on a table. Hank appeared to be sitting on a stool, but on further inspection the only things actually making contact with the metal seat were his hands as he balanced himself just above it, squatting. And then there were four others, the ones he had seen before, but not had a chance to observe. A blonde girl, who was every blonde girl that he had hated at Edinburgh. She was removed from the conversation, leaning up against a countertop along the wall, twirling her hair in her fingers and chewing her gum. Her Converses and tightly-fitted blazer shouted "I want to be badass but I don't know how." Her pink cropped tank-top and low-rise jeans screamed "prostitute" instead. There was a Native American girl sitting cross-legged on the floor just at Hank's side, her thick inky hair pulled back in a simple pony-tail. She seemed nice enough, plain and compassionate. And then there were two men sitting on stools with Hank. One was an African-American (Alchem couldn't believe he still thought in those terms, after everything that he had seen during his time in the States, but it was what it was), probably the oldest of the group, wearing bright yellow sunglasses. He was Alchem's favorite type of black man – empowered, self-confident, and wearing his pants high enough to keep from showing his ass. Just by presence, Alchem could tell he was the leader of the rag-tag youngsters. _Youngsters? Shit, I'm only 42. It's way too early for me to be saying youngsters_. The final one, however, dominated the room with large red wings. He was a scrawny kid, a mess of brown hair on his head, a goofy looking face, and slightly cross-eyed from where Alchem could see. Even his wings looked awkward, large and encompassing but with hardly any feathers, and more branch-like than anything else.

"You're right, I am the leader," the black man turned to stare directly at him, "racist." He paused, then smiled "Just kdding."

Alchem stared back, thinking. "Psychic?"

He shrugged. "Kind of. Join us. We were just talking about the others. You don't know them, but you will in time."

Alchem looked to Hank, the look of _is this kid on crack?_ in his eyes.

"Sorry, friend. It looks like Atlas is going to have to wait a while."

The Atlas project. A machine that the three scientists had been working on for what seemed like a lifetime. A machine that would power the entire west coast of the United States. Galt's motor in action. It wasn't just a thought experiment. Powering California meant controlling the power-flow in California, which meant turning off the juice to the Sentinel recharging facilities there. There was also a personal element to it. He owed a kid down there a favor. A debt, really, for a foolish past.

Hank kept on talking, rolling over Alchem's nostalgia. "The damage you did, well all of us did, to the mansion will take about a month to repair. You emptied an entire ceiling of mercury into a man?" Alchem just let out a little chuckle. He wasn't really in the conversation. "And now there are three X-Men missing. Psylocke, Cannonball, and -"

The doorbell donged throughout the manor. Suddenly, a voice came on a loudspeaker tucked away in some corner. "Hello? Hello?! Prodigy, if you can hear self, it's Douglock. Hello?"

The entire group hardly hesitated, bolting to their feet and racing upstairs to the front entrance. Alchem had nothing else to do but follow. As soon as he began to run, the pain shot up his arm again. Clearly, he wasn't all better.

As Naze opened the door, a black-and-yellow child stumbled through, bleeding down his hieroglyphic skin. "They have her! They have Psylocke!"

Everyone began to talk, but it was the winged one that stepped forward. "Where's Sam?" He had a country accent, which Alchem had almost anticipated.

Douglock looked back up at the other boy. "I'm sorry Jay. They…they…Sam's dead, Jay."

Ruckus had since given up making sense of the Sentinel plans. It was the early morning hours after the induction dinner, and the whole house had gone to bed. Emma had retired early, knowing what his plan was, and probably secretly hoping he had succeeded. Shinobi had left shortly after the ceremony, disgusted, and claiming a business meeting as an excuse to disappear quickly. And as the manor on Victoria quieted down to the murmur of crickets and the occasional car outside, heading to work early or just getting in from a night on the town, Ruckus had settled in to work. The frills had come off, as had the wig, and now he was in the office of the arguably the most powerful man in London, wearing nothing more than long johns. Leaning back in his chair, bare feet propped up on the desk smothering blue prints, with on hand rested on his temple, Ruckus was the picture of thought. Unfortunately, thought did not come easy to him.

The Sentinel schematics were exhibit A of that case. He had hoped that, reading the files, something would pop out along the lines of "deactivation switch," "weak point," or even "how to kill a Sentinel." But of course, he had diagrams, measurements, and folder upon folders of code. Zeros and ones, zeros and ones, and somewhere in there was the answer he needed. The fact that he was still awake contemplating this matter, rather than going home and coming back tomorrow, was exhibit B.

He needed someone who could make sense of the papers. Or something. There were supercomputers out there, but the only one that could even conceivably work would have been Mastermind, a computer built in the Braddock mansion only a few hours drive from London. Only, if was remembering the newspaper headlines from years ago correctly, the fire at that house had badly damaged the computer beyond repair. The Xavier mansion had nothing that would help – the bloody professor had chosen to spend his miserable existence building computers that focused on mutants, rather than a mutant's worst nightmare. Which meant that if Ruckus was going to use Mastermind, he needed a repairman.

It clicked, frustrating Ruckus with the knowledge of what he had to do. It involved a lot of hopping about, but at least there was a plan on the table. He hesitantly lifted himself from his chair and walked out to the hallway, finding the stairs that descended into the queen's quarters. It was time to make an announcement, Ruckus style.

The door to the White Queen's apartments flung open. "Emma. Pack. We leave for New York in an hour."

She was still awake, and quick to respond. "What?" There was a pause. "Are you kidding me? Even if we find him, even if he fixes the computer, _even if we figure it all out_, you still can't save your friends."

"I have to try. You would do the same, despite your reputation to the contrary. I'll be back in an hour and we'll head out immediately."

So it would be London to New York, New York back to London, and then London to Des Moines to amass his army, and reunite with Gorgeous George. He would know what to do from there. Ruckus hated jet lag.

When the Gamesmaster had heard that only one of the Upstarts had killed their target, he screamed in terror, the world's weight of agony compressing like a vice on his skull. It meant the return of the Voices.

The Game was the only thing that could keep the Voices away, that stifled the millions of thoughts floating across the planet. Concentrating on the Game was his only respite, a breath of fresh air. And it had taken him a total of a day to choose a new target for the month's victor. Which left twenty nine days of insanity. He recalculated point totals, attempted to identify future mutants and humans that posed a threat, that should be eliminated in his all-out conquest over the Voices. He even had begun scouting for new Upstarts to recruit into the fold, to speed up the Game – a task he had previously left to the current members. But nothing lasted, and invariably his mind always turned back.

He now sat in the centreroom, a chamber that had been converted from a peep-show house. Twenty smaller sitting rooms surrounded them, separated from each other. They could see only him. He could see all of them. Fifteen of these seats remained unoccupied – the Fenrir twins had since left the group, and Game players were slow to recruit new competition. But that still left five of the Upstarts, four of whom had failed him. He deliberated which to upbraid first.

The microphone switched on for Siena Blaze's room. The game players didn't know each other, didn't even know who the Gamesmaster was. It was far more interesting that way.

"You have not succeeded in the assassination of your target, Siena."

Unfortunately, anonymity sometimes backfired. Siena had attitude, gave him lip, felt that she was his equal. She would learn, eventually, that she was being used just like all the others. But while the others may meekly turn away, embarrassed, the Gamesmaster feared that Siena could turn. "I've told you already. Xavier's dead. Give me a new target and stop cheating."

"I don't know from what arrogance you presume to doubt me, girl, but understand this: if the most powerful mutant mind in the world were dead, _I would be the first to know about it!_" He inhaled deeply. "Your target remains the same. Kill Charles Xavier before the first of next month."

She flew up out of her chair. "Fine. Tell Fitzroy I said hi." She was gone before she was dismissed. The inadvertent consequence of players recruiting players was that they of course knew their recruiters. Most had the decency not to mention it.

The Gamesmaster continued counter-clockwise around the room until he found the next occupied seat. He flicked another microphone switch in front of him.

"You have not succeeded in the assassination of your target."

"Look, man, I've tried. I thought the Chicago mobs would have killed her, _which I started_ –" preempting the Gamesmaster's objection "– but she's gone underground. I've lost her. You're sure she's still alive?"

"Do you doubt me?"

"No. I'm following her attorney in New York. I'm hoping we'll get a connection there."

"Your target remains the same. Kill the mutant Rogue before the first of the month." He paused. "You are dismissed."

The next player sat immediately to the left.

"You have not succeeded in the assassination of your target."

"Yea, well, you know how it is. Did Siena kill hers?"

"Other players of the Game are not your concern Fitzroy. Focus on your target or _you will lose_."

"Look, it took me three weeks just to find out that he's working with the Friends. For godssake these month deadlines are just obscene. I did end up killing all of his followers, though. Doesn't that count for something?"

The Gamesmaster ignored the question. "Your target remains the same. Kill Donald Pierce before the first of next month. You are dismissed."

He continued to turn around the room before reaching the winner from the previous month.

"Shinobi Shaw, you succeeded in the assassination of Sebastian Shaw. A point has been added to your total." The man simply grinned back, lounging over his chair like a leopard. "You have been assigned a new target. Kill Emma Frost before the first of next month."

"Well this is fortunate," he replied. "Two targets living under my roof in a row. I can win this game in my pajamas."

"You are dismissed."

There was one more left. He had almost encompassed the entire circumference of the room when he came to face the final player.

"You have not succeeded in the assassination of your target."

"I cannot simply kill an officer of the Gre…of Apocalypse! It would mean my life!"

"Do you wish to withdraw from the game? It will mean your life as well."

"No! No no...of course not! I have assigned a spy to follow Caliban. I'm waiting for him to slip up, and when he does, I will report it to Apocalypse and have his authority for the execution. Just give it time."

"You do not have any more time. Other players continue to accumulate points while you wait for some spy to prove something that may or may not exist." This was not entirely untrue – Shaw _had_ accumulated a point tonight. "Your target remains the same. Kill the mutant Caliban before the first of next month."

"Yes, my lord."

"I am not a lord. Go."

And it was over as soon as it had begun, leaving Gamesmaster to spend another month with the Voices.

They were lined up, the four of them. Consumed by the desire to serve their master and costumed in flesh. Embroidered vines were now the burnt veins that striped across her body, falling in the crevices and rising at the mountains of her nudity, bright black flowers punctuating the thorned lines, feeding off of her still-drying blood. She was not the only one that had been affected by the change.

The newcomers had all experienced the same thing – a sudden surge of power that swept over the dams of control each had built in coping with their abilities. The result was different for each, but hers was the only permanent mark, the tattoos on her body now a permanent reminder of where she had been. She had already forgotten who she once was; the question of where was not far from lost.

The Great Lord approached War first, presenting him with a sheathed sword, intoning something that she did not pay attention to. She found herself subconsciously admiring War's naked body, the sculpting on his hairless thighs seemingly carved from silk. His chest was unmentionable, but his ass certainly made up for it, and for a moment her animal instincts kicked in and she desired more of him.

The Great Lord approached Death second, again presenting a sword. The shorter man could not have been more different from War. Grizzled, old, rough, and a look of maturity where War was naïve. Had she truly believed him to be wild and untamable? He was the most respectful, the most sincere – no, the most _noble_ of the four. Entirely different, entirely unafraid, and entirely attractive in his own right.

The Great Lord approached Pestilence and presented the third sword. It was as though he had been juiced, his arms two lifeless pieces of ribbon hanging at his side, his legs barely supporting him. More than anything, he looked tired and aware. Aware of the commitment he had just made, aware of the future, and that there would not be rest for him for days yet.

The Great Lord approached her and handed her the fourth and final sword. Along the hilt was an inscription – "Famine, the Fourth Sword of the Apocalypse." She had no training in the use of the sword, but she was suddenly inspired to learn. Thievery, chess, swordplay – these things were all the same at heart. They were all best played with a little slight of hand.

"Famine. You have been chosen to serve me as my sword and Horseman. From this day forward, think not of your past, present, nor future, but only your master. Abide by my word, and by the Coming of the Apocalypse be rewarded."

Famine nodded her head solemnly in assent. War was innocent. Death was experienced. Pestilence was wise. But only she was still mournful of the past she had to leave behind, and the path that she had chosen.

End of Part I


	7. Prologue Part II

Prologue

For some reason that escaped Trevor Fitzroy, midnight had come to be the hour of darkness, of bewitchment. But for as long as he could remember, people stayed up plenty past midnight – it wasn't any more dangerous to be out on the streets then as it was at ten, or any time after dark. And in New York City, that danger was incredibly real. Underground freaks, who were typically afraid of the Sentinels during the day, took over at night. They were human – no chance of DNA detection by the giant robots. And they were rabidly anti-mutant. But something in their Harley-hog background told them that a city run by robots just wasn't quite right. Nevertheless, they ruled back alleys as the sun sailed past the city, onwards towards the rest of a country in no better shape. But summer was ending, and the days were beginning to get shorter. Now the time of the freaks, with their chains and torture-lairs, their murderous looks and their antique weapons – that time was as early as quarter 'till eight. So why midnight?

It was one a.m. that scared the shit out of Fitzroy. The toll rang out from St. Anselm's Church, just a block down from the Baxter Building. It was a single bell stroke, just accenting the fact that he was so very alone and vulnerable standing immediately in front of the headquarters of the great mutant hunters known as the Sentinels. But it was something that had to be done, and a deal that had to be made.

Three blocks around the Baxter Building had been closed off since the assault a few weeks ago. Some people said that an entire squad of mutants had lay siege to the tower. Fitzroy doubted that there would ever be a gathering of mutants in an area in New York (besides, of course, the concentration camps), let alone in that very spot. It had to be the work of one or a handful of mutants. He neither knew nor cared. The damage to the interior was extensive, or so he had heard. But the assailants had not damaged the Mastermold. The fools. And so he found himself both able and forced to turn to the Sentinels, another card in his hand. It was all to play the game.

Of course, he couldn't play Mastermold. The damn robot had to be superior to mutant kind in total. But he had not known the ultimate Sentinel to be entirely unreasonable, and was of course willing to make deals when it suited them. In exchange for safe passage through the streets of New York, Fitzroy provided information that they would have no way of obtaining. That information was almost exclusively on their controllers, the Friends of Humanity. And tonight would be no different.

The bombshell that Bolivar Trasks' own son was a mutant, living on the island of Genosha under the tutelage of the likes of Henry Guyrich, Cameron Hodge, Graydon Creed, and of course Donald Pierce – that piece of information tasted like candy. He had found out months ago, but had been waiting for the right night to tell the Sentinels. To let them know that they were being controlled by a mutant-spawning enclave seeking only to use the robots for personal gain. They would rebel. They would shrug the chains of control the Creed and the Friends had leashed them with. And in doing so, they would kill Donald Pierce, and Fitzroy would add another tally next to his name.

The double doors to the Baxter Building's side chamber, the only room tall enough to accommodate the Mastermold, pulled open with a hydraulic whurr. It was time to ante up.

***

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Arizona, which more often than not seemed to be in a perpetual state of summer. For Lumen, sunny days meant less work, a double-edged sword itself. Sure, right now he could manipulate the rays of light shinning down on him without care, focus them to a point and pour them into the machines. But then he would be brought down into the darkness, strapped to the L.I.F.E. tablet for another few hours. _Maybe California could brown out today. They should be out enjoying the water anyways, on a_ _day like today_.

The wind whipped his brown hair – now desperately in need of cutting – across his face, occasionally so hard it felt like it would scar. It was a wonderful sensation, a connection with nature that Lumen had missed since being approached by the resistance. They themselves were a double-edge sword. It seemed like life was full of them…

"_Sir, I think it's best that you come with us." The suits that had appeared at the door weren't S.H.I.E.L.D., despite the airs they had put on. On Coronado Island, less than a thirty minute drive from the former San Diego convention center, current concentration camp, if S.H.I.E.L.D. knocked on your door they just took you away. They never spoke._

"_And I think it's best you tell me who you are."_

"_Your life is in danger if you stay here. You cannot continue to use your powers without the Sentinels noticing."_

"_I thought you guys were pretending to be S.H.I.E.L.D.?" He nodded to the truck parked in front of his house, indicating the large "Department Homeland Security" logo plastered on black metal._

"_We are here to make it look like you've disappeared. Nobody will ask questions after we take you with us. We have a job for you, and in exchange we can guarantee you immunity from the Sentinels at our headquarters."_

"_So you're resistance? I wondered if you guys really existed. Shouldn't you be trying to convince me that I should join to fight against injustice and tyranny? To protect my own people? To save the fate of the world?"_

"_Would it work?"_

"_Probably not. But I feel kind of cheated out of the liberty spiel."_

…he probably just should have said no and closed the door. Instead, he had helped to design the Light Intensity Focusing Enclosure that was to be his literal cross to bear for months now. Every day, sometimes five or six times a day, he was raised on the Promethean table out of the compound and exposed to the light. And, like now, he took the chance to breath in the fresh air. These two minute exposures were the only times he was allowed outside. And he missed the ocean.

The power that he generated swept throughout the west coast, but most notably in California. Acting under the auspices of an up-and-coming corporate venture named VaughnCurren, the resistance maintained complete control over the production of electricity as well as resided in a rarely-checked building for its headquarters. Unfortunately, they had no control over where that electricity was going, and so much of it was diverted to the new recharging stations. Sentinels from all over the continent would suck Lumen dry of his powers, just so they could go and imprison more mutants. It was the price to pay for the freedom from questions. Especially in a world in which it seemed questions were never asked unless the answers were already known, and the respondent was already convicted

***

"Perhaps it's best if you explained the project to us, Creed. In its entirety."

Graydon Creed stared back at Cameron Hodge, obviously upset at being interrupted. These weekly meetings were pointless, especially when Hodge was _supposed_ to lack a frame of reference within which to place most of the obscure comments directed at the others sitting around the table. And for what? They were all working towards the same goal.

"Very well, _Cameron_. I guess there's no point in keeping you all in the dark. The Albert project, as you may have guessed, is a Sentinel project."

"Please, Creed, let's move this along and get to the juicy part. I knew this was about the Sentinels the minute Trask walked into the room. He may have unleashed holy hell on one continent, but when did _deus ex machina_ ever stop him?" Donald Pierce punched Bolivar Trask in the shoulder playfully, as the older man, gray at the fringes of his sideburns, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was one of two men in the room – the other being Creed himself – that believed the Sentinel experiment had failed. The rest understood that they were still in control, and that Guyrich's "suppliers" were in fact 90-foot robots.

"Albert, the new Sentinel, will be capable of two things: its primary use will be the death of…well, Death himself. After the Albert model has succeeded, we can use the muscle tissue from its victim to further develop the project, so that we have an army of indestructible warriors that _think_ like the berserker. We will have a limitless supply of Wolverines, only without problems such as mortality and flesh. And we will be able to use them to control the rest of the world currently untouched by the Sentinels."

The room was silent. By now, Hodge had pieced together as much, and he had no doubt the rest had as well. They were waiting for the _why_. Creed knew as much.

"Trask's role here is obvious. Guyrich has been supplying the adamantium for our soldiers. Pierce, your role with the Reavers makes you uniquely qualified for the process of binding mutant DNA to robotics. And Cameron," Creed smirked. He honestly believed that Hodge had no idea why he was there. "You're here because of your time with the Phalanx."

Hodge feigned surprise for exactly two seconds, until Creed shifted his attention to the white board. Then Hodge was free to sigh, roll his eyes, and try to piece together the Guyrich/Trask conspiracy. There were tangles upon tangles here, and Hodge didn't like living in it.

"So what's the timeline for this little project you've got going, Creed?" Pierce was still the only man sitting who gave a damn about Albert. It was a useless project that was doomed to failure before it even started. What concerned Hodge was the fact that Trask and Guyrich essentially controlled the free world. He wanted to know what they'd do with it. And he still wanted control of the African operation.

"Well, Pierce. Right after this meeting, Cameron and I are going to go an extract the Phalanx from his chest. And then it's all you. How fast can you finish?" They were?

"What about the girl. Any news on her?" Guyrich finally chimed in.

"The Israeli? Surveillance caught her trying to swim her way off the island. Needless to say, we won't be hearing from her again. Any other questions?" No one stirred. "Then that's all. Cameron, meet me in my office in thirty minutes."

***

The stunt that the Six – as they were now being called in hushed whispers throughout the camp – had pulled off was the _only_ topic of conversation, and had been for over a month. After the breakout, and the smoke cleared, and after it was apparent that only those who had escaped _would_ be escaping, the green-switches retaliated.

The bodies of Daniel Ketch and Piotr Rasputin were impaled on spikes, then planted in the ground amongst the rest of the rotting corpses.

Demoralization was now twice a day. The smell was intolerable. It was now also done in shifts, with only a sixth of the camp's population out at any time.

Meals were reduced from once a day to once a week, again in shifts, so as to avoid the discussion of conspiratorial thoughts. This allowed those meals to be brought directly to the cells by green-switches.

Executions were now performed in the cells, as the Grinder had been destroyed. This allowed for faster killing, which in turn increased the number dead per day. The selection process was also more randomized, so that no person could tell when their day would come.

With the exception of the miners, who still enjoyed some privileges, all other mutants were handcuffed at all times, including meals. Some green-switches would stay behind throwing dishes of slop on the floor and laugh as the mutants threw their faces in, hungry for their only meal in days.

But Monika Thalberg was not worried, because she was one of the privileged. She understood now how she had been selected for this job – before encountering James Howlett, she did not know the material they were harvesting, did not know the reasons for a diamond axe. Shortly after their meeting, she knew this metal to be Adamantium. If the green-switches ever became aware of her knowledge, she too would be thrown into the pool of general population mutants being slaughtered ten-at-a-time. So she continued to play dumb.

The display of Daniel and Piotr's bodies meant that Pitch, Fugu, William, and James had made it out alive. The fact that they had left five weeks ago without return meant that there would be no return. For the first time since her imprisonment, Monika was forced to consider the rest of her life in this hell hole, without a plan to leave, without the hope of rescue. More mining, more dying, more shit trapped under her hairs, more bleeding, more disease – until finally they found out that she knew _exactly_ what was going on, and they shot her. Just like all the rest. And now, when she thought about it this way, there was no 'unless.' This was the only option.

She heaved her axe into the mound of Adamantium, the peculiar glistening metal reflecting her disgusting, unwashed face. Christ she needed a shower. And a cigarette.

***

Wandering down Victoria Street, Jamie Madrox contemplated giving up his London vacation and going home to Muir Island. His research was waiting for him, and he wasn't exactly having fun. He had planned the trip back when Excalibur was still in town. Now, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, and Colossus were locked up, Rachel, Kitty, and Douglock had returned to the United States to fight the good fight, and Dazzler wasn't taking his calls. So Madrox was left strolling the streets of London to tour the same sites for the third day in a row.

He had a duplicate back on the island, helping Moira McTaggert with things around the lab. Maybe he could spring a few more days without being missed.

Thirty minutes north of downtown, the Buddhapadipa Temple was tucked away in a tiny little residential neighborhood. Madrox has seen pictures in a brochure – the Shrine Room was nothing short of beautiful. It was something he hadn't seen, and besides, he could use some meditation. He turned on his heels and walked towards the garage where he had left his car. He was only two blocks away from Parliament when a child, no older than twelve and not paying attention to where he was going, rushed passed him with a *thwack* on Madrox's back. Another copy of himself seemed to rip from his own stomach, landing on its feet in the middle of the road.

He scrambled to reassimilate the clone, but the damage had been done. Already a handful of people around him were staring, trying to make sense of what had just happened. They couldn't know that every time he was hit, Madrox spawned another him, that he was slightly psychically in contact with all of these clones, and that he could assimilate them back into his body at will. All they understood was the one word shouted out by a man who had finally worked up the balls to say something.

"Mutie!"

That was all it took. His uncaring walk became a sprint as ten or twelve paranoid Brits came racing towards him. Son of a bitch, but he wouldn't be surprised if UK went Sentinel after all was said and done. He was really going to need the peace and quiet of meditation by the time he got to the temple. If he made it there at all.

***

The sun, sitting high and promising more of the same during the day, had turned Click's skin to a see-through shade of white. His usually stereotypically-slanted Japanese eyes had widened to show dilated pupils filled with fear. Most people thought it was a reaction to the demoralization trips through the Toronto concentration camp. But it wasn't. It was just the sun.

The collar around his neck lessened the pain a little. It meant that mechanical things appeared real, as they should. He couldn't see the bright currents of electricity flowing through the power lines, the collars around the necks of other prisoners, the blinking green beacons on the necks of the guards, or the _jinzouningen_. But the sunlight still hurt. Four years in the sewers of Tokyo would do that to a man.

The disabling of his powers did not mean that he was entirely unaware of what was going on. Quite the contrary. He had figured out fairly quickly how the collar around his neck worked. Anything that he could think of, in an attempt to remove it, would end in a localized explosion that would sever his head from his spine. Unfortunately, the disabling of his powers _did_ mean that he had no idea how to solve this dilemma. He knew all about the Grinder, the large machine that the _jinzouningen_ used to turn mutants into genetically advanced hamburger patties. And he knew the ones worth knowing in the camp as well. Being in the dark didn't mean he was blind to concentration-camp politics.

As far as he could tell, there were four mutants who commanded the respect of the others, and if there was to be a breakout, it would revolve around them. The first, and Click's favorite, was a man entirely in blue, with a tail and kind yellow eyes. They were the only eyes that didn't openly condemn him during their time outside. He understood – Click knew that this man spent a great deal of his life in the shadows as well.

If the first was a demon, covered in blue and smelling permanently of brimstone, the second was only steps away himself. A fallen angel, also blue – a recurring theme? – with metallic wings. The only signs that he had once been godly were the golden braids streaming from the top of his head. He looked incredibly out of place in the drab rags of prison, but clearly he was known.

The one he had heard called Quicksilver also commanded his own audience, the membership of which was questionable at best. He led the riffraff, instigating small skirmishes with the guards or other inmates, and generally being jackasses. The others stared when Click had an attack in the sunlight. Quicksilver's "Brotherhood" as he was calling them had openly laughed.

And then there was the doctor. Doctor Richards, who seemed to be the most intelligent of the bunch. Unfortunately, he kept to himself, ate by himself, and almost never engaged in conversation with the others. Those others would speak words of reverence as he passed, and their refusal to approach him seemed more out of respect and appreciation than of fear.

Click was one of only a handful of mutants in the prison that did not belong to any of the four camps. It was a mild amusement of his to see who claimed him, who hated him for a misperceived association, and who tried to recruit him. He wanted nothing of the faction-war that stood in the way of escape. He just wanted out. It was not until he returned to his cell, where he had remained alone and in the dark for approaching two years now, that he realized he would no longer be allowed to remain a neutral observer.

"Mein freude. It appears zat ve are sharing a cell." Already sitting inside was the demon with yellow eyes. Had he really thought them to be kind? They were conspiring, and nothing more.

Click didn't respond. Instead, he let the guards shove him inside. After the bars were locked around him, he retreated into the dark corner where he spent most of his time. Tucked away he found a bible, and threw it aside so that he could sit and think.

"I understand, Click, zat ze ozers have tried to divide you against me. Please, do not zink zat I am a bad person. In ze end, I vant only vat ze ozers vant. I vant to get out. And I zink you can help."

"Perhaps they haven't told you much about me, but I'm not a talker. If I have to share a cell with you, fine. But don't talk. Ever."

He looked hurt, and for a moment, Click was touched. He let out a heavy sigh. "What's your name, anyways?"

A smile tugged at the corners of his black lips. "Mein name is Kurt Vagner, but zey use to call me 'Ze Amazing Nightcrawler' in ze circus. I vas ze acrobat, astonishing ze spectators vith my leaping and teleportation."

"Teleportation?"

"Ja, teleportation. I can teleport anyvere I can see. Vell," and he was at once melancholy again, "I could. Before ze collar."

"Only to where you could see?"

"Vell. I could teleport anyvere, but in all honesty, I'd rather not teleport into a tree, ja?"

"So, Nightcrawler. Why did they move you here?"

"You have no doubt heard zat I have…accumulated my own panzeon of followers? Zey are in Block B. Ze guards had me moved here to H to keep me avay from my friends."

"You mean to keep you from planning an escape."

"Something like zat. But enough of zis, Click I understand zat you are good at electronic zings?"

"Something like that."

"Can you open ze collars?"

"Not without ripping your head off."

"Please, Click. Zink. Zink of a vay, and ve can all be free."

"Without an open collar to examine, it'd be impossible. But that would require opening one in order to learn how to open it. See the problem?" Click was just now aware that Nightcrawler probably could not see his face as he spoke – instead, the man was staring at a random point he had fixed his eyes on, occasionally looking around, searching for a voice. But now he had a grin on his face.

"I vill get you an open collar, mein freude. But you must do somezing for me in return."

Click was silent.

"I need you to talk vit ze ozers. Qvicksilver, Archangel, und Dr. Richards."

"No."

"You know zat ze only vay ve vill get out of zis place is mit zer help."

"No."

"Zey vill not listen to me!" His words choked off. "Please. You must be ze ambassador. Ve are a people united in our struggle. You must make zem listen to reason, razer zan revert to zer old vays."

Click was again silent, for only a moment. "No."

Nightcrawler nodded and turned away. "You are lost, just like ze ozers. Ze only vones who can fight are ze vones who still remember."

An hour of nothing but the humdrum outside their cell past before Click finally acquiesced. "Get me the collar. Then we'll talk."

The odd, fuzzy man smiled. "Zat, I can do."

The sun outside was finally setting, and Click felt comfortable emerging from the shadows to go over to his bed. He had no idea if seeing an open collar would help at all. What he _really_ needed was a workbench, his tool kit, and half-a-dozen Radio Shacks. Then, _maybe_, he could figure out how the collars worked. Short of that, he'd settle for an open one.

What would talking to the others _do_? Archangel and Nightcrawler seemed friends enough – what one proposed the other would probably follow. Dr. Richards was an unknown, an enigma that might open up only when he saw a united front allied to escape. And Quicksilver was quickly amassing his own political base, and was probably more than willing to rest on his laurels: life wasn't so tough in a prison when you had _servants_.

It was a grandiose question that hardly needed answering. After all, there were two issues at hand first. Could Nightcrawler even get an open collar? And could he open his own? For the first night since the time he had adjusted to his life in the concentration camp, sleep was difficult as his head drowned in more questions.

When he did wake up, Nightcrawler was standing above him, eclipsing the just rising sun.

"I have it. Now vill you talk to zem?"

"You…have what?" Clearly, Nightcrawler had been awake for sometime. Click still wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"Ze collar! I have it! Here." He slipped an open collar out from under his maroon prison shirt and showed it to Click like a priceless gem. "Can you do it?" His eyes were filled with fire. "Can you really get zem off?"

Click sat up, aware that he should be more focused on the situation at hand. "I don't know it's…going to take time. Where did you get this?"

The blue man pushed his way onto Click's bed, almost crunching a leg. "From outside ze Grinder. One of ze green-svitches left zem zere completely unattended. Just because I cannot teleport does not mean zat I am defeated!" He caught himself getting anxious and excited, and immediately dropped his voice down again. Guardedly, he placed the collar on Click's still-covered lap. "I can get more if you need. Ve can have a zousand of zeese collars, a million. Vatever it takes for you to figure zis out. And zen, vith Archangel und Dr. Richards, and even Qvicksilver, we can launch our assault on ze guards. On ze Sentinels."

"The what?"

Nightcrawler looked back in shock. "Ze..Sentinels? Ze robots?"

Click nodded. "_Jinzouningen_"

Nightcrawler's eyes widened in understanding. "Yes. You are not American eizer. Chinese?"

"Japanese."

"And how did you come here?"

"Long story."

"Please. Tell me. I vould love to understand."

"Another time. It looks like I have work to do." And as Click turned to the collar, a buzzer zipped through the concentration camp, announcing the hour of demoralization. His research would have to wait.


End file.
